by Edie Claire
Bridget’s expression had turned timid as a fawn. Her hands and voice shook a little. “I just wanted to talk to Allison,” she bleated.
Leigh was completely, thoroughly unmoved. “So talk!” she ordered.
Bridget’s eyes turned teary. “I… I told you I didn’t mean to scare her. I just didn’t know how to get in touch with her again.” She looked at Allison and managed a pitiful smile. “I didn’t know your last name, Allison. I just knew you were somebody’s granddaughter. I was so… flustered. But we talked about your school, and I remembered that. So that’s where I went. I’m sorry.”
Her voice cracked, and Allison piped up confidently. “I wasn’t scared.”
Leigh resisted the urge to tell her daughter to go to her room. “Get to the point, Bridget,” she barked.
The personal assistant nodded agreeably. She took in a deep, shuddering breath. “I just wanted to tell Allison that it’s really important that she tell the police absolutely everything she saw happen with Miss Lucille on Saturday.” More tears began to fall. “I’m in such horrible, horrible trouble, and I didn’t do anything wrong!”
Bridget lowered her head and began to sob, and Leigh and Warren exchanged a pensive look.
“Allison has already given a detailed statement to the police,” Warren explained. “It’s on the record. If you’re here to try and convince her to change something, you can forget it.”
“No!” Bridget protested, her voice suddenly adamant. “No, I want her to tell the truth!” She looked directly at Allison. “You saw everything. I know you did. If you could only remember it, it would help me prove I didn’t do anything wrong. Please!”
“What exactly is it you think she saw?” Leigh asked.
Bridget shook her head, sending her frizzy gray locks into further disarray. “There’s nothing in particular! It’s just… everything. They think I gave her something. I know they do. But I didn’t! Miss Lucille had her lunchtime pills with her taco and she wasn’t due for any more until bedtime. They keep asking me what I did right before she fell asleep… what I gave her to eat and drink. And I told them, but they don’t believe me!”
“I remember everything she ate and drank,” Allison announced.
“Tell me!” Bridget begged. “Oh, please. Tell me what you remember!”
“Why do you need to know?” Leigh argued.
Bridget flailed her arms. “Don’t you see? I’m so afraid! I can’t let… I can’t go… Last night I slept in my car!” She broke down and started crying again.
Allison twisted in Leigh’s arms and turned around to face her parents. “There’s no reason I can’t tell her what I already told the police,” she reasoned. “I think it will make her feel better, and then she won’t think she has to keep running. Wouldn’t that be better for everybody?”
Leigh still wanted to send both her children inside the house and lock the doors behind them. But she could think of no credible argument. She and her husband exchanged another look.
“All right, Allison,” Warren answered for them. But he kept his own hand on the girl’s shoulder as she turned toward Bridget again.
“What I remember,” Allison began, speaking confidently, “is that by evening we were all getting tired and hungry, even though we had that late lunch. Lucille had been complaining about being hungry for hours, but it was right around seven, when the crowds started dwindling, that she told you to go steal some cookies for her. I remember she said ‘and don’t get caught!’ because she didn’t want anyone to know she was breaking the oath.”
“That’s right,” Bridget agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “And did she ask me for punch, too?”
“No,” Allison replied. “Just cookies. She specifically wanted one of Jennie Ruth’s strawberry date cookies and some of Delores’s little ones from the cookie press. But not the ones with the shiny metallic sugar balls, because those always got stuck in her dentures.”
Bridget smiled broadly. “Yes! Yes, oh, you do have a good memory!”
Leigh studied the woman. If Bridget didn’t want Allison to tell the absolute truth, she was an amazing actress.
“You left the room, and Lucille passed some gas really loud,” Allison continued. “Then she looked at me and said, ‘control yourself, child!’”
Ethan laughed out loud as Allison imitated the old woman’s scolding tone. If Leigh wasn’t so uptight she would have chuckled herself; both her kids were good mimics.
“Oh, she did that to everyone,” Bridget said with an agitated wave of her hand. “I’ve even heard her blame her doctor. What next?”
“That’s all she said to me. She pretty much ignored me,” Allison went on. “When you got back, you were holding a cup of punch and a napkin full of cookies. You put the napkin on the table and she yelled at you to hide it in her lap, and you did.”
Bridget continued smiling broadly, nodding encouragement. “You told the police all this?”
“Of course,” Allison replied. “I thought at first that you brought the punch for her, but instead you drank it really quick.”
“I was afraid she’d take it!” Bridget declared. “And I was thirsty, myself. I couldn’t carry two cups and the cookies, too.”
“You could have drunk yours in the kitchen and then asked for another one for her,” Leigh pointed out.
The personal assistant blinked several times. “I guess so. I didn’t think of that.”
Despite her best intentions to remain cynical, Leigh believed her. She thought back to Bridget’s appearance in the kitchen that night. The personal assistant had come in and gotten served — and sneaked out the cookies — just before Leigh noticed the mistletoe berry floating in the bowl. The mistletoe was already on the ceiling then, so Bridget’s cup must have been served after Harry spiked the punch. “Did you taste alcohol in the cider?” she asked.
Bridget immediately looked contrite. “The police asked me that, too! And yes, I guess I did. But I didn’t really think about it. It just tasted good to me.”
“Did it occur to you that Lucille shouldn’t have alcohol?” Leigh accused.
Bridget started looking teary again. “I didn’t give her any!” she insisted. “I drank the whole cup! But… no, not really. The doctors always told her she shouldn’t drink, but she did anyway. She always had a little gin before bed, and her son knew about it and he told me to let her do what she wanted, that it hadn’t killed her yet. That’s what he said, ‘It hasn’t killed her yet!’”
Bridget turned back to Allison. “Go on, please!” she begged.
“Well, you drank the punch, and Lucille started eating her cookies,” Allison reported. “She said the strawberry one was ‘subpar’ and that Jennie Ruth was ‘getting senile.’ But it looked to me like she ate the whole thing. Then she started in on the smaller ones. She yelled at you because one of them had some sprinkles on it she didn’t like. You asked her if you could have that one and she said no.”
Always the charmer, Leigh thought uncharitably. Someday, she really did hope to be enlightened as to one positive quality of the late Lucille Busby.
“That was when you came in, Mom,” Allison said, looking up at Leigh. “You asked me about Lucille sneaking cookies. Olympia walked in, too, and said something about how well everything was going. Then Lucille started coughing. Bridget reached for the glass of water that was on the floor, but she knocked it over.”
“Why was the glass on the floor?” Leigh interrupted, remembering her mother’s fear that punch had spilled on the carpet.
“Lucille wouldn’t let me leave it on the table!” Bridget defended. “Everything was set just so with the decorations and all, and she couldn’t hold it in her lap. What else was I supposed to do with it?”
“Anyway,” Allison went on determinedly, “Lucille was still coughing. Bridget, you went out to get water, and Grandma came in.”
Bridget nodded enthusiastically. “When I got back, all four of you were there with her, and she had a cup of punch in her h
and. But I didn’t give it to her! Did I?”
“No,” Allison answered. “Olympia did.”
Bridget’s eyes bugged. “Olympia? I didn’t know if it was her or Frances. I wasn’t paying any attention before — I mean, to who had a drink with them. And then I had to leave again to get a towel. You told the police all that?”
“Of course,” Allison confirmed.
Bridget’s chest heaved with a sigh. “Oh! Oh, that’s wonderful. I… I didn’t know.”
“Why do you think it matters so much?” Allison asked pointedly.
Bridget wiped her reddened eyes with a hand. “Because I’ve been thinking about it. How… I mean when she might have… you know.” Bridget turned to Leigh with a guilty look. “I kind of lied to you that night,” she said miserably. “Miss Lucille does nod off in her chair sometimes, but I was really surprised that she fell asleep then. She was so worked up from all the excitement, I expected her to just get crankier and crankier. But by the time I finished sopping up the water from the carpet, she was all mellowed out, and just a couple minutes later, she was out like a light.”
Bridget’s eyes got teary again. “I was surprised, but God forgive me, I was just so glad! When I went to throw away the napkin and the empty cups it occurred to me that maybe she got a little alcohol in her punch, too, and that’s what made her sleepy. I didn’t worry about it because that’s why she drank the gin at home, to help her sleep. Anyway, she seemed peaceful, and she wasn’t yelling at me anymore, and I never thought—” The assistant’s voice broke down again.
Leigh looked at her husband, who lifted one eyebrow back at her. The woman was pretty damned convincing.
“Lucille drank the entire cup of punch that Olympia gave her,” Allison said to her parents. “I wonder if she noticed alcohol in it. She did say, ‘I like that one. Fruity.’”
Bridget raised her head. “She said what? ‘Fruity?’”
Allison nodded.
Bridget looked from Leigh to Warren. “That’s funny. I’d say it had a bitter tang, if anything. It was cognac. Right?”
Leigh nodded. “But… we don’t know if Olympia got her punch before or after the bowl was spiked. There might not have been any alcohol in her serving.”
“Lenna might remember if she served Olympia before or after Harry came in and hung up the mistletoe,” Allison piped up. “Or Grandma Lydie might know.”
“But if there wasn’t any alcohol in it, why did Lucille fall asleep?” Bridget insisted. “She didn’t say she felt bad.” Her hands flew to her mouth and her voice turned frantic again. “Unless it really was poisoned!”
Olympia. Leigh’s pulse began to pound in her ears. “Allie,” she whispered too quietly for Bridget to hear, “what did you write about Olympia in that notebook? The one that was stolen?”
Allison turned to face her mother. “Nothing about what happened with Lucille. Just medical stuff that Virginia told me.”
The pounding pulse continued. “What kind of medical stuff?”
Allison motioned for Leigh to bend down a little. Leigh did so, and her daughter whispered in her ear. “She has this condition called Conn’s syndrome. It’s where her adrenal glands don’t work right. I don’t really understand it, even after Grandpa explained it to me. But it causes high blood pressure and problems with electrolytes, and if you don’t treat it, you can die of a stroke. Olympia is on medication, but Virginia said it’s tough to dose correctly because she has some other health problems too. So her blood pressure can go low or high. It’s made her pass out a couple times, which is why she doesn’t drive anymore.”
Leigh straightened up. She needed to let some of the blood flow out of her head, otherwise she couldn’t hear over the pounding in her ears. After a few seconds, she bent back down again. “You wrote all that down?” she asked.
“Of course,” Allison whispered. “It means that Olympia had a lot of medication on hand. Probably stuff that could have been bad for Lucille. Because Lucille had congestive heart failure, and early kidney failure, too. There are all kinds of drug interactions and—”
“I get the picture,” Leigh said faintly, straightening again. She reminded herself that every bit of this information was already in the police department’s hands. She reminded herself that she had always considered every Floribunda a suspect. But those reminders didn’t help.
Frances liked Olympia. Frances trusted Olympia. Frances was with Olympia right now.
Leigh recalled with sudden, icy clarity the eloquent speech she had made to the Floribundas about how Allison wasn’t interested in the case anymore. They had all been gathered in her mother’s living room at the time.
All of them except Olympia.
“Leigh?” she heard Warren say. “What are you thinking?”
They spoke on the phone and visited, Melvin had said of Olympia and Lucille. The two of them were rather close, I gather.
Leigh could stand it no longer.
“If you’ll excuse us, Bridget,” she said firmly. “There’s somewhere we have to go.”
Chapter 24
“I can’t believe you made me leave cheerleading early just to go to my Grandma’s house!” Lenna whined. “It was so embarrassing!”
“Sorry,” Leigh said insincerely. Warren was driving their van as fast as he safely could, but the extra time it had taken to pick Lenna up at the middle school had fried what few nerves Leigh had left. They had only been fifteen minutes early to pick Lenna up, which was certainly better than abandoning her at the school. At least Mathias wasn’t Leigh’s responsibility; he had basketball until dinnertime on Tuesdays and his dad picked him up then. Her plan was to drop off all three kids at her Aunt Lydie’s house, then go babysit her mother until the Floribundas left. Then she and Frances were going to have a very long, very honest, and no doubt very upsetting conversation. Preferably with Warren there. The world’s most perfect son-in-law might have no independent knowledge of the situation, but if he vouched for Leigh’s opinion, Frances would give it twice the weight.
Leigh checked her voice mail on her cell phone and used an app to check her landline at home. There was still no response from Maura. Leigh had left a second message informing the detective that they had talked to Bridget and were now headed to the Koslows’ house. The local police had been called off, but Leigh was perfectly prepared to place another call now if anything at the Koslow home appeared… well… out of control.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
Allison’s small voice piped up from the back seat. “Mom, I think Bridget’s following us again.”
Are you kidding me? Leigh swung around. Sure enough, the ratty old car was right behind their bumper. “She’s not even trying to hide herself!” she said to Warren.
“Well, that’s a good sign,” he answered. “She probably just wants to know what’s going on. You bundled us all in the car so fast… she seemed to have more she wanted to say. Or ask.”
“Well, I can’t help that,” Leigh replied. “I’m not leaving my mother alone with Olympia.”
“The two of them are very unlikely to be alone, you know,” Warren assured. “It is an official meeting.”
“I know,” Leigh answered, feeling no better as dark visions played in her head of the Floribundas standing in a circle holding candles and wearing long red robes with thorns sticking out of their heads. “Hurry.”
“Mom,” Allison piped up again. “I haven’t told you what else I found out about the Peppers.”
“Do I want to know?” Leigh asked weakly.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s important, but it is kind of interesting,” Allison answered. “Those databases are so cool, Dad! You wouldn’t believe what I could find out, just over lunch!”
Leigh threw her husband a sideways glare. He smiled back sheepishly.
“Melvin’s last name is Dumke,” Allison began, consulting her pocket notebook. “He’s spent most of his life in and around New York City. Olympia is his first and only wife. But
get this: he didn’t even meet her until after he moved to Rochester ten years ago!”
“Really?” Leigh said with surprise. “How long have they been married?”
“Not even seven years,” Allison answered. “Isn’t that wild? And he’s her third husband. She’s been married to a chiropractor and a radiologist. Widowed both times.”
Leigh’s heart dropped into her shoes. “Warren—”
“I know. I’m getting there as fast as I can,” he insisted.
“They were both a lot older than her,” Allison added. “So I’m not sure you should read too much into that. But I do think I know why she and Melvin changed their names.”
Leigh sucked in a breath and prepared herself. They were only a block away now. “Yes?”
“Malpractice,” Allison said grimly. “Melvin got sued. A bunch of times, all of them last year. I’m guessing that’s why he retired. And why they sold their house. And why they moved to a low-rent apartment in another state where nobody knew them.”
Warren let out a whistle. “Well, that makes sense.”
“You found all that out with your birthday presents?” Ethan asked incredulously, pausing a moment in the app he was playing, which had been making exploding sounds the whole drive.
“Yep,” Allison answered proudly.
“Sweet,” Ethan replied. He returned to his game.
Lenna, who was in the third row of the van, was busy texting and paid no attention to any of them.
“Oh,” Allison spoke up. “And Mom, Olympia’s not a tax attorney, either. She’s an accountant.”
Leigh had no business being surprised by that.
“We’re here,” Warren announced, shifting the van into park. “As close as I can get, anyway. The Floribundas take up a lot of parking spaces.”
Leigh hopped out and hurried the kids along. It was amazing how slowly middle schoolers got out of a car. In elementary school, the kids would be halfway across a parking lot before she could get her seatbelt undone. Now they stared at their phones like zombies and practically had to be pried out.