Pick Your Poison yrm-1

by Leann Sweeney

  “I met Feldman yesterday,” I began.

  “You did?” Her eyes widened, then lit with excitement. “What did he say? I’m sure he didn’t confess or anything that simple. Is that why you’re upset? Because he won’t admit—”

  “He didn’t tell me anything directly, but I overheard him on the telephone. You’ll have a hard time accepting this. I know I did.” I put my hand over hers.

  “Tell me,” said Kate, her lips now ringed with white.

  I swallowed, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t budge. “It’s Daddy. He lied. He... How do I say this?” I stared at my hand covering hers; then those blasted tears I’d been fighting all day escaped. I swiped them away angrily with the back of my hand.

  Kate’s eyes filled, too. “Abby, please. I can’t stand seeing you like this.”

  “Our parents didn’t die in a plane crash. Our mother was murdered when she tried to find the babies Feldman took from her. Twin girls born to Cloris thirty years ago.”

  She scooted her chair back, almost as if she believed that if she distanced herself from me, she wouldn’t have to hear the truth.

  She shook her head. “Don’t be silly. I don’t know what you overheard, but I think you misunderstood or—”

  “Cloris was our mother,” I said softly.

  “No! Please, no!” She covered her mouth, eyes glistening.

  “Lies, Kate. We were fed nothing but lies.” I continued on, telling her everything I had learned from Sally Jean, Judge Hayes, Aunt Caroline, and Willis. It helped me detach from my emotions as I explained. When I was finished, Kate sat silently for what seemed an eternity.

  Finally she said, “When you found Ben murdered, I had this sense that somehow his murder was connected to us—in some personal way. But I didn’t want it to be true. I thought maybe if we hurried and sold the house, we could escape the past. Funny how you know something before you really know it. That doesn’t make sense, but—”

  “We both knew. But I ran toward the truth instead of away from it,” I said.

  “Are you turning this information over to Jeff? Please say that’s what you plan to do.”

  “Yes, but I want that CD, Kate. I want to hear Daddy’s side. I don’t want to believe he murdered our mother or cooperated with Feldman, even though I’m almost certain that’s what I’ll discover.”

  “What about Feldman’s wife? She’s one cold, calculating female. Couldn’t she have murdered Ben?”

  I nodded. “Maybe. But the killer knew the routine here, with the roses and all. That means Willis. Lord knows he had motive. His reputation and his law practice were at stake.” I stood.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “That CD is important. I’m heading for Steven’s office. I can never count on him to pick up his messages.”

  “But the roads are terrible, and they’ll be in worse condition the farther south you travel.”

  “Can I use the 4Runner again?”

  Kate stood. “I’ll go with you.”

  “You need to stay in case Jeff or Steven calls. Give them my cell number. And if Steven does phone, tell him to bring me that CD.”

  “Please be careful. It’s pouring bullfrogs and heifer yearlings, like Daddy used to...” Her voice trailed off and she bit her lower lip.

  Steven’s office, located about halfway between Houston and Galveston, occupied the far-west stall of a strip mall off the Gulf Freeway. The water on the feeder road leading into the parking lot sloshed halfway up my tires, and still the muddy skies poured rain.

  The office was locked and Steven was nowhere in sight, but the cleaning crew hadn’t left. They were jump-starting their van with cables attached to another vehicle. The same lady who always cleaned Steven’s office recognized me and unlocked his door when I told her what I needed.

  The place hadn’t changed. Steven always marked the map on the wall showing his ongoing construction jobs with colored pushpins, but aside from the pin on P Street, he had only one other job going. Can’t make much of a living like that, I thought, my eyes scanning the office.

  I didn’t see any CDs, maybe because papers were strewn all over, along with stacks of blueprints. I checked the drive on the computer. No luck there, either.

  But when I moved aside a paper, I spied a floppy disk with a familiar label. My disk. The one I’d looked for in the carousel at home just a short time ago.

  So why did Steven need to borrow the CD if he had a disk with an updated program?

  Cold fingers of fear gripped my heart and squeezed.

  “Shit,” I whispered, tearing out the door.

  27

  I climbed back in the 4Runner and was back on the freeway heading toward Galveston seconds later. Why had Steven told Kate he needed the CD if the same program on disk had been here in his office all along? Unless he realized the CD contained important information.

  Okay. So maybe Steven wanted to help me uncover the truth, and this was his latest attempt at inserting himself back into my life. Somehow he figured out before I did that the CD was the key.

  My IQ through most of my so-called investigating had equaled my bra size: meager. But as blind as I’d been, believing for one nanosecond that Steven Bradley had borrowed the CD to help me find Ben’s murderer took the cake, the ice cream, and the hired clown.

  Despite his newfound temperance, Steven still took care of Steven. If he wanted that CD, he had a damn good reason, one that didn’t involve helping anyone but himself.

  Checking the rearview mirror, I watched the wake of dirty water, knowing I shouldn’t be speeding in this weather. I might pirouette straight into the hereafter on a highway so treacherously close to impassable.

  But I didn’t care about my safety. Not anymore. I was dealing with the realization that I had badly misread every person in my life besides Kate. But folks were finished pissing in my boots and telling me it was rainwater. Feldman wouldn’t be tossing me out this time. Not before I had the truth.

  An umbrella would have been useless with the wind commanding the rain every which way, so I settled for my purse, holding it over my head as I rushed to the Feldmans’ front door. My hand rested on the bell, but I didn’t press it. Why would Feldman or Hamilton ever invite me in? So I tried the knob.

  The door opened.

  “Anyone home?” I called into the chandelier-lit foyer.

  No response.

  I stepped inside, immediately creating a puddle at my feet. I looked around for a mat to wipe my sopping Keds and discovered that an unlocked door wasn’t the only thing out of the ordinary at the Feldman home.

  A trail of what looked like blood meandered from the left and stopped at the front door. Some blood had even rusted the small pond around my feet.

  I announced my presence louder. “Is anybody here?”

  “What are you doing in my house?” called Helen Hamilton from the landing. She clutched a wad of lingerie in one hand and a hair dryer in the other and sounded pretty pissed off, but then, so was I.

  “The door was open,” I said.

  “It’s still open. Find your way out the same way you came in.”

  “Do you know who I really am, Hamilton?”

  She sneered down at me. “I know exactly who you are. Now get the hell out, and if you’re smart, you’ll get off this island.”

  She disappeared into a room off the landing.

  “If you won’t come to me, I’ll come to you,” I muttered, tackling the curving stairs. I hadn’t had one of those lovely pain pills lately and my thighs started aching again, making it seem like a very long climb to the second floor.

  Hamilton was packing, if that was what you wanted to call it. Actually, she was throwing things into a suitcase as fast as I’d seen anyone move in a long time.

  I leaned on the door frame. “Did you know there’s blood in your foyer?”

  She ignored me and continued her frenzied raid of the dresser.

  “Are you hurt? Did Feldman do something to you?�
� I asked.

  She whirled. “You think that’s my blood down there?” She shook her head. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Then where did it come from?”

  “I could make an educated guess, but I won’t.” She swiped the dresser top, clearing off hairbrushes and perfume bottles. After gathering them up, she stuffed them into the suitcase.

  “Did you ask your husband what happened down there?”

  “I don’t have time for your questions,” she said.

  “Where’s Feldman? I need to talk to him before the police get here and arrest him.”

  “He’s not here. And that’s the problem.” She paused, a hand on her hip. “You see, he never leaves. And I mean never. Samuel has this phobia about outdoors. It’s been three years since he’s even seen the sun. But I came home and bingo—he’s gone! No explanation except the blood.”

  She closed her suitcase, retucked her blouse into her skirt, and slid her long, skinny feet into shoes retrieved from under the bed.

  Those shoes. I’d seen them before, hadn’t I?

  She glanced briefly into the mirror above the oak dresser and picked up the suitcase.

  “Wait a minute. You’re leaving without even trying to find your husband?”

  She pushed past me and I followed her down the stairs.

  “I’m not waiting around for the cops to arrive or for someone to add my blood to that.” She nodded at the marble floor.

  “Feldman was involved in murder, and I’m thinking you might know quite a lot about that involvement,” I said.

  “I’m not saying a word without a lawyer. But they have to find me first.”

  She hurried out before I could move, slamming the door after her.

  Knowing I should call 911 and tell the police to follow her, I instead sat on the bottom stair, anger, fear, and confusion taking over. Maybe Jeff got my message. Maybe he was available.

  I opened my purse to find my cell phone, but instead my fingers touched something at first unfamiliar. And then I remembered the small videotape from Hamilton’s office. I’d forgotten all about it.

  I imagined myself huddled behind the door that day at Parental Advocates, holding my breath as Hamilton came in for the copy of the check.

  And then it clicked.

  Hamilton had come back to her office with a man that afternoon. I’d heard his voice. Probably wasn’t Feldman the Phobic, if what she said about him earlier was true. I had a sick feeling I knew who it was, though.

  Hamilton’s shoes, the ones I’d seen her put on upstairs, were the same Pappagallo shoes tucked under Steven’s coffee table the night I went to his apartment about the canceled checks. Could the man who accompanied Hamilton to her office that afternoon have been Steven? Had I felt so guilty about rejecting him, been so worried he’d relapse into alcoholism, I chose to be blinded by his “I’m so in love with you” act? Hell, they write country songs more believable than the game he’d been playing with me.

  The checks Daddy had written to Steven loomed large in this picture. My ex-husband had indeed changed in the last few months, but not in the direction I thought. When he stopped drinking, that conniving mind of his had kicked into high gear. And then the night Steven and Jeff had fought on my lawn returned like it happened yesterday. What if Steven had dismantled the attic looking for evidence connecting Ben and Daddy? What if he was leaving my house right after he’d done just that—and was not arriving, as I’d assumed? He probably spotted Jeff Kline’s car across the street, and knowing the neighborhood, correctly assumed that a stranger parked there at one A.M. had to be either a cop or private security. That was when he came back in the house and fabricated the blueprint cover story—after making enough noise to ensure that I awoke and investigated. I nodded, my mouth settling into a frown. Another betrayal, one I should have expected.

  I stared at the tape I held. Here was the proof. When I had hidden behind the door at Parental Advocates, the camera was recording everything. With the door wide-open, it would have taped the outer office—and whoever was in the outer office.

  I turned the tape over and over, eyes closed, jaw tight. “Don’t do this, Abby,” I said. “You don’t need to see this right now. Give the tape to Jeff.”

  I was feeling what Steven probably felt every time he thought about taking a drink. I shouldn’t. This will hurt me. Don’t destroy what little hope you have left.

  And like Steven, I couldn’t stop myself.

  “There’s got to be a VCR somewhere in this mausoleum,” I said, rising.

  After wandering through the lavish home, I found a room large enough to accommodate the Houston Rockets for preseason practice. Beyond the pool table and bar sat a big-screen TV. I supposed that if you hadn’t left your house for three years, it helped to have a few fancy toys to pass the time. Feldman had all the equipment I needed to confirm my suspicions about Steven, even an adapter for the smaller-size tape.

  Not the greatest quality, I noted, once I got things working. The picture was huge, very grainy.

  There I was, sneaking around in the hallway. And there I was hiding after I heard them arrive. The door opened and... yes! I could make out a man’s figure framed in the front doorway. But the daylight behind him made it hard to make out his features. In the next few frames, Hamilton walked back out with the paper in her hand and picked something up—her purse—then shut the door. I rewound, stopped the tape, and advanced frame by frame, then paused and took in the man’s poorly focused face. That hairline, the curve of those lips, God, I knew them almost as well as my own. Knew the face of a killer.

  28

  I called home once I was back on the road, and Kate answered, sounding breathless and anxious.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Did Steven call?” I swerved to avoid a patch of high water on the right.

  “No. I’m relieved to hear your voice. Where are you, Abby?”

  “Galveston. What about Jeff?”

  “He phoned. I gave him your cell phone number. After I told him you were looking for that CD, he sounded pretty irritated, and I’m feeling the same way. You took a bad fall yesterday, and the roads aren’t fit to travel. You should have been home long ago.”

  “With this weather, it’ll take me an hour to get back to Houston. Expect me about nine.”

  “Wait a minute. Don’t you have your radio on? An eighteen-wheeler overturned on the causeway and it’s taking an hour to get from Broadway off the island.”

  “Damn. I’ll wait on P Street, if it’s not flooded over there already.”

  “That street sometimes fills with water, Abby. Why not wait it out in a restaurant or—”

  “I need a quiet place, somewhere to think things through.”

  “Are you okay?” Kate said.

  “I’m fine. Call me when the causeway is clear. The digital networks jam up in emergencies, so phone me at the Victorian.”

  She didn’t know the number, so I gave it to her; then she said, “If Steven calls, I’ll tell him where he can reach you and—”

  “No!” I practically shouted. “Tell him nothing.”

  “There is something wrong,” said Kate.

  I steered around more gigantic puddles. “You’ve had enough revelations for one day. Besdies, you’re starting to break up. ’Bye.” I clicked off the phone and, seeing that the battery was low, plugged it into the cigarette lighter.

  I turned onto Seawall Boulevard and found the street practically deserted. Usually the tourists hung in like a hair in a biscuit no matter what the weather, but not tonight. A jagged flash lit the murky gulf to my left, and a tremendous clap of thunder followed.

  My neck ached and my rear throbbed where that nail had punctured me. I wanted to be home sleeping, free from the truth now invading my life like Attila stomping across Europe.

  When I turned onto P Street, the water was almost to the curb. I’d have to pay attention, be ready to leave if real flooding was imminent.

  The house next to the Victorian was vacan
t and sat on higher ground than ours, so I took the precaution of parking the 4Runner in that driveway. I used the back entrance leading to the kitchen, anxious to swallow more pain medicine. I ached all over.

  Steven had cleared a path through the mudroom and patched the damage done by the fallen bathroom, but he hadn’t tidied up. I found empty Gatorade containers, bug spray, crumpled brown bags from McDonald’s... but not a glass amid the clutter. I gave up and cupped my hand under the faucet, gulping the pills down.

  I wandered back into the front parlor, knowing I should go upstairs and make sure the whole second floor wasn’t soaked because of that gigantic hole in the wall. But the pain in my legs reminded me of the challenge stairs presented.

  I limped to the window and opened the wood shades, checking on the street flooding. Just then I noticed a truck turn the corner and deaden its lights.

  I quickly narrowed the shades, recognizing that pickup. I turned out the light and slipped into the closet, not wanting to confront Steven alone. Not stranded here. I huddled in the far corner, praying he’d come and go quickly.

  The back door opened and I heard Steven grunting and groaning, then dragging noises.

  He must have turned on the hall light, because a sliver of brightness appeared. Almost simultaneously the closet door flew open.

  I tried making myself invisible in the corner, some mean feat in an empty cubicle.

  But he was so concerned with shoving his tarpaulin-wrapped load into the closet, he didn’t see me.

  29

  Steven dropped his heavy bundle, and I flinched at the lifeless thud. He leaned on the door frame, catching his breath and wiping rain and sweat off his forehead with his forearm.

  And then he saw me.

  His eyes flickered, but I didn’t read surprise in his face. I stood, putting my hands flat against the wall behind me, knowing I was trapped in this closet and in this house—and in my own living nightmare.

  He said, “Your gears are turning full speed, aren’t they, Abby?” He blocked the door with his spread arms, and the smell of his perspiration fueled a wave of nausea.