by Shannon Hill
“It’s being quiet that’s got this country in such a mess!” Ruth railed, a little hoarsely. “Evil only triumphs if good people do nothing, and we have a duty to keep this a Christian nation! One nation under God, it says so in the Constitution!”
I kept one hand clamped on Bobbi. If I let her go, I’d murder Ruth myself. I drew several deep breaths, the yogic kind that are supposed to be cleansing. Didn’t work. The damn heat was getting to me.
“Ruth,” I retorted, “I’d tell you to read the Constitution and show me where the hell it says ‘Christian nation’ but that’d mean you’d have to actually open your mind instead of your mouth.”
“Are you insulting me?”
I don’t lose my temper on the job very often, but Ruth was a special case. “I’m promising you. Every single word you’ve said? I’m telling Aunt Marge. And if that doesn’t scare you, you’re dumber than I thought.”
Bobbi laughed. I gave her a hard shake. “And the both of you, just avoid each other, will you? There’s been enough killing around here!”
I dragged Bobbi to her car by force. Boris trotted after me, not keen to be left near Ruth and a garden hose. “You really telling Miz Turner?”
“Every word, outta both your mouths,” I told her. She flinched. I stood glaring until she had gotten into her car and was driving meekly back to her salon. Then I took out my cell phone. There’s no point making promises unless you’re going to keep them, and I could dream of no better punishment for either of them than Aunt Marge on a rampage about true Christian values and appropriate behavior.
***^***
Rounding up all the Colliers and their spouses required some thinking and some conniving, and it required Punk Sims. He was so happy to be wearing a deputy’s badge I don’t think he’d have cared if we’d ordered him to arrest Godzilla. The prospect of bringing in the Collier clan for more questioning delighted him.
It didn’t thrill Tom, who was still pretty sure we’d be shot. At least Tanya Hartley wouldn’t be angry that he didn’t tell her what he was up to. She wasn’t my pick for Public Defender of the Year, but she knew the drill well enough to get there are some things cops and lawyers have to keep to themselves.
We took over Littlepage Elementary again, but this time, I set up shop in the cafeteria. It was small, depressing, and with the big metal grates down over the kitchen area for the summer, the only doors in and out were the ones to the hallway. Easy to guard. Sure, someone could try to dive out the windows, but they were old-fashioned, multi-paned, and set high. It’d take work.
This time, we rounded up the Colliers one by one. Less strain on my nerves and our resources. We went for the men first, most of them out of the hollow at work. Tom rounded up Ken and Rob together at their aunt’s convenience store in Gilfoyle, grabbing coffees; I snagged Army down in Lynchburg, and picked up Hal Lynch on the way back. Punk took on May Payne and Gloria Shenk, catching them at the grocery store. Thanks to Harry, I was able to find Seth Tyler fixing a water heater in the tiny village of Brown. Then we headed into the hollow, rounding up Eileen, Lynne, Laura and Honey in a big sweep right after lunchtime. Like all the rest, they got the choice of coming along with us voluntarily or in handcuffs.
Punk was standing guard in the cafeteria. Harry had driven up, and had supplied a cooler of drinks and an array of snacks, like it was a picnic. Kim had brought the video camera and was fussing with it. As I’d asked, Jeff and Davis were present, studiedly ostracized by and ostracizing their siblings and in-laws. Except for Donna—reportedly sleeping off a drunk and disorderly in Nelson—the whole gang was there.
I took a quick survey. The only Colliers not openly or subtly worried were Jeff and Davis. It’s strange, but it hit me hard all of a sudden that just about all these people had colluded and conspired to cover up Vera’s murder. It wasn’t only a testament to how little Vera was loved. It was a monument to how poorly she’d raised her kids.
I clapped my hands. Not necessary. I already had all the attention the Colliers could give, which right then felt like a few tons more than I wanted. I wished I didn’t have to stand. I could have used Boris cuddling on my lap. But I did lightly tap the table on which we had set several boxes—most of them closed so no one saw they were full of old magazines—and Boris jumped up to sit where he could be seen, and, more importantly, petted. I rubbed his ears once, for luck, and hoped I was right about that tail of his.
“I know you’d all rather not be here right now,” I said by way of greeting. “But we’ve learned a few things and I’d like to have it all out in the open.”
Nobody looked more nervous than anybody else. Well, I was just starting.
“First off, we know about the mushrooms that were found in Davis’s office at the café. We had an expert take a look at them.”
Ken scoffed. “You don’t got the budget for that.”
I smiled sunnily. No need to tell him I’d paid the consulting fee out of my own pocket. “The species of mushroom found in Davis’s office turns out to be Amanita phalloides.” I got the pronunciation right that time. I’d had Tom’s cousin coach me. “The death cap, it’s called.”
Some arms crossed. A few legs did, then uncrossed. I was very glad we’d had them all sit at three tables pulled close together. Their group reactions were going to be as important as their individual ones, at least as far as I was concerned.
“Thing is, whoever harvested the mushrooms didn’t do a great job of cleaning them first. There were some bits of dirt and leaf litter attached.”
It was Eileen’s turn to act as official voice of dissent. “This isn’t CSI.”
“No, it’s not, and the dirt turned out not to matter, because it’s the bugs, pardon me,” I corrected with exaggerated care, “insects that tell us what we need to know. A fungus gnat is not always just a fungus gnat.”
Harry beamed at me. I winced inwardly. Damn. He was rubbing off on me.
“Ever hear of Lycoriella auripila? Lycoriella solani?” I waited a full minute by the clock on the wall. Nobody flinched, but I saw sweat starting to gather on Rich Shenk’s upper lip. Despite the weather, it wasn’t that warm in the cafeteria. We had fans going.
“Turns out they’re found only in Europe.”
I caught May Collier’s head movement. It was slight, instantly arrested, but it was there, and she had been turning toward Honey.
“Spare yourself the trouble,” I added as coldly as I could. “Only two of you even have passports, and that’s Honey and Rich. Got them for the big fancy foodie tour of Italy they went on last year.” They didn’t know it, but I didn’t have their credit card statements from the last year in hand yet, so I was bluffing when I said, “It’s funny how useful a credit card statement is sometimes.” I kept my fingers crossed that even as I spoke, the documents were being faxed to my office. Harry had scrambled to get the necessary paperwork. I just had to hope to God that Honey and Rich didn’t live cash-only. Or by checkbook.
As it was, I’d pushed my luck enough to get the information I wanted from State about the passports. Officially, forms had yet to be processed. Unofficially, it pays to have a grateful college roommate who works there. Honey’s complexion under her make-up was paper white. Rich’s face was invisible. He was studying his shoes. His hands were linked tightly together.
“I haven’t heard back from the travel agency yet.” That was because I had no idea which one they’d used. Boris’s tail gave me away with a double-twitch. “But I can guess the itinerary.” I’d checked a few ads online for such things late the previous night. “Tour romantic Tuscany and learn about local cuisine from an expert native guide. Lots of wine and cheese and fancy breads.”
I hoped I hadn’t overdone the sneer. I hadn’t. Honey started to bristle, but it was low-key, not yet a full snit. Time enough for that.
“So let me see if I can put this together. There you are with your cameras and fanny-packs and your hoodies and cargo pants and flip-flops.”
“Death caps are pretty common causes of poisoning over there. I’m guessing you were learning about local ingredients, how Italians really know how to live off the produce of the land. And you thought to yourself, ‘Hey, what a great thing to keep on hand in case we get tired of Mama’.”
Honey’s lips were twitching, though she’d pressed them tight. If she didn’t start yelling at me soon, she’d get a hernia.
“What I don’t get is how you knew how to dry them so they didn’t rot.” I paused to stroke Boris, who was sitting in his best Egyptian statue pose for the occasion. “Oh, and how you got them back home through customs. Obviously, you didn’t declare them. So…” I pretended to study the ceiling, hating what I had to do. But it had to be said. “Of course. Honey must’ve hidden them in her purse, in that special little zipper section we gals all know about. Nobody’s gonna poke around in there. Especially not a guy.”
Honey had regained color, but it wasn’t healthy. Her nails were digging into her thighs, right below the hemline of her stylishly crisp linen shorts.
“Since you passed through customs okay, I guess God must’ve meant for you to turn Mama’s innards to goo.”
I saw eight Colliers flinch at that image. None of them were Honey. Interestingly, one of them was Laura.
It was Harry’s turn. I sat down and let Boris rub his cheek on mine.
“The problem you have, Mrs. Shenk, is that you and your husband took that tour at the beginning of last September. Lovely time of year to visit Italy, I’m told. But you see,” said Harry in that nasty-gentle way he has that always reminds me of a snake, “that tells me you had these mushrooms sitting around for many moons before you decided to feed them to Vera. That’s premeditation. Of a spectacular kind, really, given how impatient I’m sure you were to see your mother dead. What tipped the scales, Mrs. Shenk?” He was nearly purring, but it was a wicked sound. Like Boris when he’s happy he clawed someone. “Finding out about Grenville? Or did Vera finally call you a worthless waste of space one time too many?”
He’d hit a nerve, but not with Honey. Or Laura. It was Eileen who’d taken that shot to heart.
“It’s a pity, truly a pity,” Harry crooned, “that I cannot see you arrested and tried for murder, Mrs. Shenk. But it’s only fair.” Harry’s teeth flashed. “It wasn’t the mushrooms that killed her.”
19.
It was grotesque, how the Colliers turned on each other. Like watching a tank of piranha after the cow’s been thrown in, all flash and teeth and boiling water. They didn’t even bother yelling at us more than a minute before the accusations started to fly. Predictably, it was Honey who started, pointing at Ken and shrilling, “No wonder you wanted to burn it! Covering your own ass!”
Harry popped open a can of ginger ale and passed it to me. He leaned back against the table, arms folded, like a scout at a football game, assessing the players. “You know,” he said, “it’s refreshing, to realize this has been stressful to them. I was worried we were the only ones.”
In the melee, Laura was sobbing, Ken and Rob were nose to nose, and Army was telling Eileen what he thought of her for things that had happened in elementary school.
“Cold comfort,” I told Harry. Hal Lynch was telling Army to leave Eileen alone, and Army looked like he was going to pop Hal on the chin. Gloria, meanwhile, was yelling at brother Rich and sister-in-law Honey about their stupidity. Not, I noticed, for killing Vera, but for getting caught. “You couldn’t just shoot her?”
Tom sighed. “Should we…”
“Let ‘em go,” I said. “I’ve got my reasons.”
It was Seth Tyler, Laura’s husband, who broke away and stomped toward us. He should’ve been asking why they were all there if the worst we had on any Collier was attempted murder. Instead, he demanded, “How’d the old bitch die?”
Behind him, I saw the weeping Laura suddenly realize she was sitting alone in the storm.
“Insulin,” I said softly. “A lot of it.”
He paled a little around his eyes, then nodded once. He sat down next to his wife again, leaning in to whisper in her ear. She jerked back, eyes widening.
“I give him ten minutes,” drawled Harry. “And he’ll be back here spilling his guts.”
“Make it five,” said Tom.
“You’re both wrong,” I said. “He’s coming now.”
Seth Tyler threw back his shoulders. He said, “It’s only right, it’s the right thing, that I tell you…”
We waited.
“I saw insulin and needles in our fridge. Laura said it was part of some diet she was on. But the name on them was Frances.”
Frances, also known as Frankie. Marilee’s diabetic daughter.
“And I never saw them after the old lady died.”
We nodded. We waited some more.
Seth finally asked, “Does this mean I don’t get in trouble?”
“Not with the law,” I said, and finished my ginger ale. “All right, Tom, you take Ken, I’ll get Laura, let’s move the party back to the office.”
As we moved, the Collier hurricane roared on. Another twenty minutes, I’d have got them ratting each other out for everything from littering to grand larceny. It was tempting. But my stomach wouldn’t have been able to stand it. No matter how often I tell myself this job makes me immune to the worst of human nature, I never do quite believe it.
***^***
It took time for Skip Warner to show up to defend his client, and more time to get Tanya Hartley in once Skip decided he’d take on Ken but not Laura. We took Ken first, to give Laura time to stew as much to allow Tanya time to arrive.
I had expected Ken to cut a deal, but not that fast. Skip barely had time to talk to the man before we were back in the lunchroom—I mean, interrogation room—and sitting down to hear him out.
To nobody’s surprise, even mine, Ken admitted he and Rob had burned their mother’s house to cover up for their sister and brother-in-law. It was, according to Ken, a spontaneous reaction to the shock of finding out there really had been murder done. “We protect our own,” he said, with no apparent irony.
But then there was some thought, said Ken. Before they lit the match and tossed it in the window. Vera’d had valuables. Stocks. Grenville—a secret May had let out of the bag, since she opened all of Vera’s mail, a federal offense I let slide. So they’d gone and found the papers in Vera’s box spring, before they torched the house and kept it lit with liberal applications of gasoline from a safe distance. The papers had been hidden again, the gathered siblings agreeing to split the proceeds of the Grenville sale once the hubbub died down. But the papers were a danger. Nobody wanted to hold onto them.
At that, Ken gave me a baleful glare. “Not with you and that damn cat sniffing around.”
I petted Boris and tried not to be smug.
“Where are these papers?” asked Harry.
“Buried them. They’re up in Mama’s grave.”
Bet that would’ve pleased Vera.
Harry stopped jotting notes long enough to study Ken with a curiously benevolent smile. “Just how many of you stood around watching Rome burn?”
Ken blinked. I clarified, “Who was involved in the arson besides you and Rob? Eileen knew the hiding place was in the box spring, so there’s her, you, Rob. Who else?”
“Honey and Rich.”
“So it wasn’t really all of you gonna share the money,” I said. “It was you, Rob, Eileen, and those two. Five out of… how many of you are there again?”
An ugly flush covered Ken’s face. “You didn’t know Mama.”
Lucky for me, I didn’t say. Aunt Marge’s lectures on tact must have finally sunk in.
Harry had the same thought I had, leaned forward with his eyes narrowed on Ken’s. “You want us to believe that a Collier house burned up in Paint Hollow, and only five Colliers knew about it? Come now, Kenneth, we’re not that…�
��naïve. Surely the other Colliers rushed to the rescue with their garden hoses and fire extinguishers.”
We’d pushed too far, too hard. Ken might hand over a few siblings to save himself some time in prison, but he wasn’t so lost to the Collier code he’d admit to more truth than he had to. Chances were, we’d never know for sure if he talked other Colliers into helping by not helping. Right then, I could live with that. Just for starters, we had Ken and Rob on the arson, Honey and Rich on the attempted murder, and all of them on miscellaneous charges that Harry was gleefully listing in his notebook. I wanted to move on to Laura.
***^***
Laura Collier Tyler hadn’t stopped crying for hours. She ought to have been as dried up and dried out as an old mummy, but the waterworks kept going. And going. The woman was a river.
While I waited for her to calm down, I caught up on phone calls. I listened to Bobbi plan her wedding for half an hour, arranged to sign the paperwork swapping my burial plot for an acre of land, and set up a dental cleaning. After that, I tidied my desk, arranged all the faxes and other paperwork that had finally come in on the Vera Collier case, and groomed Boris. Eventually, after I’d played some solitaire on the computer, Tanya Hartley told us Laura was ready.
There was relief in Laura. For the first time, I saw her relaxed, and it wasn’t until then I understood how prim and rigid she had always seemed. It was the difference between a block of wood and a sack of flour.
“I gotta give you credit,” I told her as I put Boris on the table. He sat regally glaring at her in his mismatched way. I was counting on him to be a distraction. “Murder by insulin’s rare. It’s tricky. You gotta use the fast-acting stuff. And it’s just dumb luck for you that your sister and niece use that, isn’t it.”
Laura studied her nails. They were interestingly bitten. That was new.
“Thing is,” I went on, because I had to, “insulin’s not all quiet. Even if it hits you hard and fast, it’s not like just closing your eyes and going to sleep.”