A Crime of Poison

by Nancy Haddock

  “I think you’d win that bet, Debbie Nicole. Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Out with it, child,” Sherry commanded when I’d disconnected and looked up.

  I relayed the highlights of the call, and Dab nodded.

  “He’d certainly have motive to go after Cornell. But why wait so long?”

  “Too busy helping his brother and the family deal with the overdose trauma?” Aster offered.

  “Then Cornell was fired and left town,” I added as I sank onto my seat. “It’d be easy for Durley to lose track of him. At least for a while.”

  I patted my lap expecting T.C. to hop up, but both she and Amber sat on their haunches beneath the easel and murder board, heads turning to each of us as they listened to our conversation.

  “I do believe a PI would have the skills and tools to find him again, even if that took time.”

  “Right, Eleanor, and when he knew Cornell would be in Lilyvale, Durley showed up to take revenge,” Sherry concluded.

  “I wonder if he knew about the allergy and the snickerdoodle fetish?” Maise mused.

  “We’re losing sight of one thing,” Dab said. “We have a consultation with a killer. What do we do? Cancel?”

  I opened my mouth, but Fred spoke first.

  “I say we storm the varmint’s office.”

  “And do what? Hang him from the yardarm?” Maise asked.

  “I’d sure like to give him a taste of his own medicine,” Aster snapped. “Imagine setting us up to be charged with murder!”

  “You know,” Aunt Sherry said slowly, “I’ll bet Dex Hamlin knew Durley killed Cornell and was blackmailing him. There could be evidence in his house.”

  “Now wait a minute,” I said, but the Six were on a roll. They were blowing off steam, I assured myself, so I shut my mouth and let the conversation flow fast and furious.

  “How do you propose we get in?”

  “Fred can pick the lock.”

  “Where will the rest of us be?”

  “Nixy goes with Fred, and we five will keep the appointment at his office. Surely we can keep him busy for thirty or forty-five minutes.”

  “I do believe that might work.”

  “You in, missy?”

  All eyes turned to me, and I shook my head. “Have you lost your collective minds? We can’t break into Durley’s house.”

  “Why not?” Maise asked. “Aster and I can’t get into more trouble than we’re already in.”

  “Charlene Vogelman changed her mind about you,” I said, stretching the truth only a tad. “Besides, we don’t know where Durley lives.”

  “Eleanor can do a property search.”

  “And if she can’t find the information, Lamar can. He’s a genius with search engines,” Aster said earnestly.

  “Forget it. We’ll all be in the slammer if we get caught, and—”

  “Not if’n we can get the goods on this skunk,” Fred interrupted.

  “Y’all, we absolutely, positively cannot do this. For heaven’s sake, if Durley is really guilty, he’s already killed two people. He won’t think twice about adding us to the list.”

  “Now, missy, he cain’t kill all of us. Dumpin’ our bodies would keep him hoppin’ for a week.”

  Growing desperate to convince them this was lunacy, I said, “Y’all, the man has a gun. We can’t protect ourselves.”

  “He’ll be meeting with us,” Sherry said. “He won’t have a reason to hurt perfectly harmless seniors.”

  “’Asides, I learnt to throw knives as a boy. I can do the same with a screwdriver, and I’m deadly at twenty paces.”

  I wanted to laugh, but the urge to cry was stronger. Oh, so very much stronger. I tried another tack to end this crazy scheme. “Durley is going to wonder why we didn’t all show up.”

  “Did you tell him how many of us were coming?” Sherry asked.

  “Well, no.”

  “If he asks, we simply tell him Fred had a fix-it emergency.”

  “What about me?”

  “We’ll tell him Amber got sick,” Maise said.

  Amber cocked her head. “Ur?” I took that as dog for Say what?

  Aster clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s good. We’ll say she threw up all over you just as we were leaving.”

  Now Amber lowered her head and growled. I was right there with her. Growl, howl. Either would do.

  “I do believe you’d best give in, Nixy,” Eleanor said gently.

  “You’re on board with this?”

  Maise crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re doing it whether you go along or not. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.”

  I gave up and let my head thunk on the table.

  • • •

  I held out hope that Eleanor wouldn’t find Lee Durley’s residence, but Jasmine’s boyfriend had stopped in to see her, and Lamar helped search for and locate the property. Was it a legal search? I didn’t want to know.

  I also held hope that Eric or Charlene would call me back. I hadn’t wanted to explain the whys and wherefores of our accidental discovery in a voice mail, but I was growing desperate. We had to leave in ten minutes to make it to El Dorado on time.

  I placed calls to both Eric and Charlene again as I trudged upstairs. Again no luck, but this time I left messages as clear and concise as I could. In the apartment, I grabbed my hobo bag. It showed its age and wear, but it held my pepper spray. Except when it didn’t. Dang. Checkbook and extra cash. A pen and a small spiral notebook with little pockets for receipts. Sunglasses case. Travel pack of tissues. Three battered Band-Aids. No pepper spray, and I had no clue where I’d put it, no time to search. Maybe I’d pick up a broken chunk of concrete curbing from the alley. Any weapon was better than none.

  All the lavender spray in Aster’s arsenal couldn’t make me feel good about breaking and entering.

  • • •

  Dab drove the ladies to Durley’s office, and I drove my white Camry to the address we had for Lee Durley. Not to insult Fred’s ride, but his truck was more likely to attract a neighbor’s attention.

  I’d programmed Durley’s office address into my tablet’s navigation app and gave Maise the written directions, too. I plugged his house address into my phone’s nav app and gave the cell to Fred. I’d never traveled far with him, and he proved to be a backseat driver. He talked, lectured, and told me how to drive all the way to El Dorado, but had grown quieter as we got closer to our destination. When we turned onto Durley’s street, the silence in the car was thick. He might be having an attack of conscience. He might be having an attack of nerves. He might be having a heart attack. He still wouldn’t back out, so I didn’t bother to offer the option.

  We cruised around the block to get the lay of the land. Durley’s 1960s-era ranch-style house didn’t have a garage. Just a carport, and there were no vehicles in his driveway or in front of his house. In a stroke of luck, the house next door to Durley’s was for sale, and a high evergreen hedge ran down the driveway, separating the properties. Instinct and watching crime shows told me I should park on another block, but I didn’t want Fred to walk that far. Besides, after I backed into the for-sale house drive and parked, I hopped out to peer through a gap in the front room drapes. No furniture, and several flyers were strewn on the front porch. I took both clues to mean the house was empty and trotted back to my partner in crime.

  “Remember the plan?”

  “I ain’t senile, missy. Course I remember. If’n a neighbor stops us or somebody’s at Durley’s house, you turn on the charm and use your gift of gab.”

  I made sure my cell was muted as we headed to Durley’s, then dropped it in my cargo pocket. The fist-sized chunk of concrete in my hobo bag bounced against my ribs, but it was a reassuring weight. Thankfully, the sidewalks and walkways to the houses were relatively flat and in good repai
r and didn’t slow Fred down. He clank-clunked his walker along at a good clip, and we soon stood on Durley’s small porch. Since we had no clue if Durley had a wife, girlfriend, roommate, or heck, a cleaning lady, I rang the doorbell and then knocked. Twice. No sounds of movement from inside, and no dogs barking.

  “Are you good to go?” I asked quietly.

  “Bet your nuts ’n’ bolts.”

  We both donned white exam gloves that I’d stuck in my bag, the kind we used when we cleaned the store. Fred slipped a long brown case from the tool belt on his walker, and I held it for him as he extracted several gadgets. How long he’d owned a professional lockpick kit, I didn’t want to know. He certainly was proficient with it, though, because in a minute flat, he gave me a broad smile.

  “Got it.”

  “You’re a man of many talents, Fred. Now, remember, we only have about twenty minutes to search.”

  “Then let’s get ’er done.”

  He opened the door, and we froze waiting for an alarm to sound. Nothing.

  “It might be a silent alarm.” Maybe it was silly to whisper, but who yells when they’re breaking and entering?

  Fred clomped over the threshold and peered at the wall beside the door, where a security box was mounted. No red light, no green light, no lights at all.

  “Maybe he forgot to set it,” Fred murmured.

  A private investigator who forgot to set his alarm? I shrugged. It could happen, but we needed to move fast just in case.

  “Where’d you want to search first, missy? Where’d a guy like this keep the gun he used on Hamlin?”

  “On his person?”

  Fred rolled his eyes at me. “How ’bout a backup weapon?”

  “Let’s look for an office.”

  The house retained its original layout, so it wasn’t difficult to find our way through the living-dining room, past the opening to the kitchen, and on to the hall, where we found a bathroom and three small bedrooms. The wood floors creaked now and then, but the whole place was neat as a pin, almost as if no one lived there.

  In the last bedroom facing the front of the house, we found an executive-sized gray metal desk, a two-drawer lateral file cabinet made of cheap laminate that had seen better days, and a black desk chair. The file cabinet was locked, and the shallow middle drawer held nothing but pens, pencils, and paper clips. Fred started searching the four deeper drawers marching down one end of the desk, and I took the ones on the other side.

  In the last drawer, I hit pay dirt. A manila file labeled simply CORNELL. I yanked it out, opened it, and quickly leafed through page after page.

  “Whatcha got there?” Fred asked.

  “A lot of notes about Cornell. Where he was, what he was doing.”

  “Anything ’bout Durley killin’ him?”

  “No, but we don’t have time for me to read the whole thing. This should be enough for Vogelman to act on. Let’s go.”

  “What about the gun? Could be in the closet.”

  I itched to get the heck out of there but stuffed the folder in my bag and opened the closet door. No rack of rifles and pistols, knives and swords. Nothing but a three-tier bookshelf loaded with printer paper, envelopes of every size, and a stack of business cards.

  I shut the door, made sure the desk drawers were properly closed, and put the chair back in the position we’d found it. We made tracks for the front door but paused where the hall emptied into the living-dining room. I peered out, scanning the space. Why, I don’t know. If the coast wasn’t clear, we were sunk.

  “Hold up, missy,” Fred said when I was halfway to freedom.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I been thinking ’bout that peanut flour brainstorm Judy had. Maybe there’s some in Durley’s kitchen. Let’s look.”

  “We have the file, and that’s incriminating enough. We need to get out of here.”

  “But findin’ that ingredient would be like findin’ the smokin’ gun. Bound to seal the deal for that idjit detective.”

  Fred headed toward the kitchen. I had no choice other than to follow, but my itching-to-get-out feeling tripled. This room was done in bachelor brown and tan with large ceramic floor tiles. I plopped my bag on the Corian counter to help Fred search the cabinets. We found a tiny pantry with baking soda, baking powder, sugar, and white flour, but no peanut flour.

  I pulled my phone from my cropped pants pocket to check the time. We’d been inside the house eighteen minutes, and I had eight new messages. Some texts, some voice mails. I read the first text from Eleanor.

  BUG OUT!

  For a second, I couldn’t breathe, and then I exhaled in a whoosh.

  “Fred, we have to go right now.”

  I dropped the phone into my pocket and snatched my bag by its top with a suddenly sweaty hand. The file added to the weight of the concrete lump hidden there as I whirled to leave.

  Except Lee Durley’s frame blocked the entire doorway.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  My heartbeat stuttered, then raced. My gaze locked on the shoulder holster strapped across his chest, a gun nestled inside it. My stomach plummeted.

  I met Durley’s steady gaze, and oddly, his eyes weren’t brimming with malice and evil. He didn’t even look particularly angry. Instead an amused half smile curved his lips, and that frightened me more.

  I knew this plot had been a bad idea.

  Durley held up a small tan sack with PEANUT FLOUR in red letters and swung it side to side tauntingly.

  “Looking for this?”

  “Matter a’ fact, we are,” Fred said from behind me. “Hand it over, and we’ll be on our way.”

  Durley laughed and shook his head. “Nice try, old man. You aren’t going anywhere but where I tell you.”

  “Who you callin’ old?” Fred grumbled.

  Frightened as I was, Fred’s bravado helped me quell my head-to-toe trembling so I could think.

  Durley drew his gun and gestured toward the living room. “Come on out here.”

  If I could swing my bag at his head fast and hard—

  “Move!”

  Durley stepped back, out of the doorway, and I eyed the distance between us. I’d have to lunge at him in order to land a hit anywhere on his body. Should I pretend to trip? If I smacked him hard enough to disable him, I might be able to kick his gun away and we could escape.

  “Ms. Nix, give it up.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “I see the wheels turning. You won’t get the best of me, so move it.”

  The part of me that hated being bullied rebelled. “Or what? You’ll shoot us where we stand?”

  Surprise crossed his face. “I’m not a monster, Ms. Nix, and I don’t want to shoot you. I’m taking you hostage.”

  “Right, like you won’t shoot a hostage. Bad guys don’t let witnesses live, and you’ve already killed two men.”

  “They deserved it. You don’t. Not if you cooperate,” he ended with a scowl. “Living room. Now.”

  I didn’t trust him, but I was short on options at the moment. I edged toward the doorway with Fred’s walker clank-clunking behind me.

  “What about Fred? Will you let him go?” I asked, again judging the distance between Durley and me. Too far. Whacking him was a no-go.

  “I’ll tie him up and leave him here.”

  Fred humphed. “You and what army, varmint?”

  “Actually, Ms. Nix will tie you. I’ll check her work.”

  I eased into the dining area and kept backing up as Fred followed. Maybe it was just nerves, but even with Durley’s gun steadily pointed at us, I wanted answers.

  “Why did you set Aster and Maise up to take the blame for Cornell’s death?”

  “That wasn’t intentional,” he said offhandedly as he dropped the bag of flour on the dining table. “I’d aimed to shoot
the worm, but I couldn’t resist making him suffer when I saw the snickerdoodles at the hot dog stand.”

  “So you went home and whipped up a batch of cookies using peanut flour?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “How did you tumble to that?”

  “My best friend is a baker.”

  “Hats off to your friend. My sister has gone gluten-free. It was child’s play to borrow her bag of flour.”

  “How did you know about Cornell’s peanut allergy?” I held my purse slightly behind my leg.

  “I’m an investigator, Ms. Nix. I admit I lost track of him for a while. I had family issues to settle. Once I found him again, I learned everything about him, including that he had a peanut allergy and a heart problem.”

  I stopped between a faux-suede chair and a sofa, and Fred stood beside me. A small round coffee table sat in front of the sofa. Rope was coiled on the sofa back near where Durley stood. A lot of rope.

  “Your purse looks heavy and lumpy, Ms. Nix. Put it there on the coffee table. Now.”

  I reluctantly lowered my purse, hoping the concrete piece inside didn’t clunk. If I kept him talking long enough, maybe reinforcements would arrive. The seniors had sent texts. They had Durley’s home address. And if they didn’t storm the house themselves, they would’ve called the local police. Time to use my gift for gab.

  “You were in the square when Hamlin beat up Cornell,” I said. “I saw you on the sidewalk.”

  Durley chuckled, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “For a few minutes, I thought he’d do the killing for me.”

  “How did you keep track of Cornell after he left the square Sunday morning? It wasn’t dumb luck that you were at the convenience store on Sunday night when he was,” I said.

  “You have been busy,” he said, his brows climbing to his forehead. “Did you know it was me this morning when you called for the appointment?”

  I shifted so Fred would be behind me. “We put everything together about an hour ago.”

  “We?” he asked sharply. “How many people know about me?”

  I shrugged. “About a dozen, including two Lilyvale detectives and a county deputy. Trite as it sounds, you really won’t get away with this.”