Died in the Wool

by Rett MacPherson

  The bottom fell out of my stomach. Colin and I looked at each other. “Strychnine,” I whispered.

  “That’s right, that’s what I said. Sandy told Doris—according to Doris—that he’d pay off all her debts if she wouldn’t tell the authorities or the papers about what she’d saw. He didn’t want people to think of his daughter looking like that. He wanted people to remember her being all sweet and beautiful, like she was.”

  “But what about the authorities? Surely they would have understood as soon as they saw the body,” I said.

  “Yeah, which is why I say they didn’t call the authorities until a day or two later, when the stiffness had settled and she looked fairly normal again.”

  I sat back, speechless.

  “What about this Doris?” Colin asked. “How come she told you all of this?”

  “Because I married her daughter,” Mr. Tarullo said. “One day we got to talking and she just confessed all of it. It’s a good thing she didn’t tell me or my brother right after Glory’s death, because my brother would have killed Whalen Kendall himself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because nobody would think for a second that Sandy killed Glory. It was Whalen, I’ll betcha. And Tony woulda killed him, and then my brother woulda went to jail. So I’m glad the son-of-a-bitch got a conscience finally and blew his brains out. He was a complete no-account.”

  I’d been listening to Mr. Tarullo speak, but I’d only half heard everything he’d said since he’d described the state of Glory Kendall’s body. I’d been flashing back to what Maddie Fulton had looked like when I found her, which led me to the obvious question: How much of a coincidence is it that—if Mr. Tarullo is correct—Glory Anne Kendall was killed with strychnine and then, almost eighty-five years later, Maddie Fulton comes down sick with strychnine poisoning? The only connection was the quilts.

  “Mr. Tarullo, I can’t thank you enough for speaking to us so frankly about all of this.”

  “I’ve been waiting all these years to tell somebody,” he said. “Nobody really cared before.”

  “I hate to just leave, but something very urgent has just come to my attention,” I said, “so Colin and I have to go. Thank your daughter for her hospitality.”

  “I sure will,” he said. “Take care.”

  I tapped Colin on the shoulder and all but ran out of the backyard to my car.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Colin asked. Funny, I was nearly running, but with his long legs he was walking normally.

  “Worse,” I said as we got in the car.

  “What’s the connection between Maddie’s strychnine poisoning and Glory’s? There has to be one, I can see it on your face,” he said.

  “Get out your cell phone and call Sheriff Mort,” I said. “The night that Maddie got sick, she’d been preparing a quilt that Glory had made.”

  “So?” he said, dialing.

  “I remember her saying the first time we talked about her quilts that one of them still had pins in it. It was spread out on her guest bed. And there were straight pins on the nightstand. I think those pins had been coated with strychnine,” I said. “Meant for Glory, which she obviously found. The thing is, if the person who coated the pins with strychnine in the first place—Whalen—then killed himself without telling anybody how he poisoned her … then those same poisoned pins would still have been in the quilt basting the three sections together.”

  “Mort, it’s Colin,” he said into the cell phone. “You need to get a unit over to Maddie Fulton’s house as soon as possible.”

  He explained to Mort everything I’d just said as we drove at top speed to Maddie’s house.

  Fifteen

  “It makes total sense now,” I said. “Well, some of it does. Well, certain parts of it do.” I took the Hollyberry Falls turn about ten miles an hour too fast. Colin gripped the door handle.

  “You’re speeding.”

  “Yeah, and you’re not the sheriff anymore,” I said, and chuckled.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Me not being the sheriff.”

  “Oh, hell yes.”

  “Okay, so what makes sense now?”

  “I remember Father Bingham saying that Father O’Brien told him that Sandy Kendall got special dispensation to have his daughter buried in the Catholic cemetery even though she’d committed suicide.”

  “So?”

  “I’m thinking Sandy Kendall went to Father O’Brien, or whoever the pastor was at the time, and told him the truth. In confession. I think he went to the priest and said he knew for a fact his daughter had not committed suicide because his son had killed her and he wanted Glory buried in the family plot. It would completely explain how and why he got that accomplished,” I said.

  “If he knew his son, Whalen, had killed Glory … He confessed it to a priest but said nothing to the authorities?”

  “It’s his son,” I said. “He’d already lost two out of three kids. I guess he couldn’t bear to lose his third and last child.”

  Colin shrugged.

  “This is all speculation. Without Father O’Brien coming back from the dead and breaking the oath of secrecy, I’ll never know for sure, but it totally makes sense,” I said.

  “So you believe without a doubt that Whalen killed his sister,” he said. “How are you gonna prove it?”

  “I can’t prove it. I don’t need to prove it.”

  “What do you mean you don’t need to prove it?”

  I pulled the car in at Maddie Fulton’s house just behind the squad car. Then I looked at Colin. “There’s nobody to arrest,” I said. “There’s nobody in imminent danger, just as soon as we take care of these pins. Oh, speaking of which, I’ll need the crime scene unit to take all of the sewing notions at the Gaheimer House that Geena and I removed from the Kendall house. Those could well be contaminated, too.”

  “All right, but why don’t you need to prove this?”

  “I’m not writing or publishing a dissertation on what happened. Nobody’s being arrested. I’ll know in my heart what happened, and that’s good enough for me,” I said.

  “But what about the museum? Are you gonna tell tourists your speculation without proof?”

  I thought about that for a minute. “Maybe.”

  He started to protest. Loudly.

  “I can state up front that it’s all speculation,” I said.

  “Don’t bother,” he said with his hands up. “If you’re not going to do it right, then don’t do it. If you can’t prove Whalen poisoned his sister, then don’t mention it. You just leave it as a mystery for the tourists to conclude what they will.”

  “Look, you can’t tell me what to do with my own museum,” I said.

  “Well, I just did,” he said, and got out of the car.

  “Colin!” I said, following him. “I can state the facts that I have, the speculation that I’ve heard…”

  “And you’ll be doing no good for that family. Think about it, Torie. What has that poor family had to endure? Even dead. Beyond the grave, their names are still being thrown around in mockery. People joke about them, make fun of them. Now you’re going to help people slander them? What if Whalen was completely innocent? What if Sandy Kendall poisoned his own daughter?”

  “Why would he?” I asked.

  “Why would Whalen? That’s not the point,” he said. “The point is, as of right now, you have a ninety-four-year-old man who remembers a few incidents from his childhood, looking through half-love-crazy eyes. Sandy Kendall is as much a viable suspect as Whalen. So unless you can prove it, I suggest you not mention it.”

  “There is no banana cake worth having to put up with you!” I screeched.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” I stormed past him into Maddie’s house, where I found Deputy Oldham and a crime scene investigator. “Hi, Deputy.”

  “Torie,” she said. Deputy Wendy Oldham is new to the Granite County Sheriff’s Department.
She’s about twenty-eight, with a touch of copper in her blond hair, and green eyes. I like Deputy Oldham a lot. In fact, ten years ago, when she was working her way through college, I used to pay her to do the landscaping for the Gaheimer House. Well, Sylvia actually paid her, but I hired her. “You said there’s strychnine on some sewing pins?” She said that with pure disbelief in her voice, and I couldn’t say that I blamed her.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Back here in the guest bedroom. Also, I’m assuming the poison has probably seeped into the surrounding fabric wherever there had been a pin. Maybe not, hell, I don’t know. So I’d say take the whole quilt and the pins, and don’t touch anything without gloves.”

  “Right,” she said.

  “Also, I’ve got some sewing notions at the Gaheimer House that may be contaminated.” Then I thought about the morning glory quilt still in the frame. “And another quilt that’s still basted in a frame. That needs to be checked, too.”

  “All right,” she said. “We’ll take care of it.”

  Then I opened my cell phone and called the Gaheimer House. Stephanie answered on the second ring.

  “Stephanie, it’s me. Don’t touch the morning glory quilt that’s still in the frame or any of the sewing notions.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Don’t let Geena touch them, either, if she’s there.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “Why not?”

  “I’ll explain when I get there.”

  I really wanted to drop Colin off at his house, but that would mean driving all the way back out to Wisteria, so I dropped him off at his office, whether he wanted me to or not. “Hey,” I said as he got out of my car. “Why don’t we do a barbecue fund-raiser so that you can give this building a face-lift?”

  He glanced at the tan rectangular building that served as city hall and his office, and back at me. “It is pretty stinkin’ ugly, isn’t it?”

  “I thought I just didn’t like the building because Bill was mayor, but now that you’re mayor, I find I still don’t like the building.”

  “Me, neither,” he said. “All right, organize it. Let me know what you need me to do.”

  That’s the great thing about New Kassel. Rarely do we ever tax anybody for anything. We just happily go about having fund-raisers, bazaars, and festivals. Speaking of which, the first day of the first annual rose show was fast approaching.

  I drove back to my office at the Gaheimer House, grabbed a Dr Pepper, and drank half of the can standing in the kitchen. My sister came in and hauled out the chocolate chip cookies. “You look like you could use some chocolate chips,” she said.

  I ate one and chewed in silence. “You ever feel like … you’re just going around in circles? Like you’re doing what you think you should be doing rather than what you are supposed to be doing?”

  “Rough day?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe it’s just that when I think I’ve discovered the limits of what a human being can do to another human being, something else comes along that makes me realize how naive I’ve been all along.”

  “My dog puked on me today,” Stephanie said.

  “Oh, that blows,” I said.

  “What’s the deal with the quilts?” she asked. She pulled out a chair and sat down.

  I explained to her everything I’d learned. Then I told her about the fight I’d had with Colin.

  “Not to be taking sides or anything, but what if he’s right?” Stephanie asked. “What if Whalen was behaving the way he was because he was scared, too? I mean, you said yourself that Whalen’s wife and daughter took off and never came back. There had to be a reason for that.”

  “I know,” I said, “but a few people have told me that they didn’t trust Whalen or they thought he was no good. Not just one person.”

  She shrugged. “Well, you can never tell.”

  “You really can’t, can you?” I said. “I’m going home. The rose show opens in a week, and I’m hoping that Tobias has gotten the list of roses from Maddie and that everything is in order.”

  “You hope?” she asked, laughing.

  “I know, not a very good attitude to have,” I said. “Trust me, it’s a first. I’m usually overinvolved in the festivals.”

  “Don’t make it a habit,” she said. I held up my half-empty Dr Pepper can, noiselessly asking if she wanted to finish it. She took it and drank the rest as I walked out of the Gaheimer House to my car.

  After dinner, I decided I wanted to talk with Sheriff Mort, so I called the office. He wasn’t there. Peg said he’d gone fishing and was off all weekend, which meant I’d have to wait until Monday to even ask him what I wanted to ask him. Not to mention Peg said that something urgent had come up on one of his cases and she needed to talk to him before the weekend was out. Even though she had tried his cell phone, I called it anyway. He didn’t answer. So I called Colin at home. He would know where to find Mort, because if it had anything to do with fishing, Colin knew about it.

  “Hey, it’s Torie,” I said when he answered. “I’m trying to get ahold of Mort, but he’s not answering his cell phone.”

  “So?” he said. “I’m not his keeper.”

  “No, I know, but he went fishing. Where’s a good place to go fishing around here?”

  “You called a man on his cell phone while he was fishing?” he asked.

  “Yes. Now where would he have gone?”

  “Torie, you don’t call a man’s cell phone when he’s fishing. My God, don’t you know anything?”

  He was truly appalled by my lack of fishing etiquette.

  “Great, now I know. So where would he have gone?”

  “Depends on what he’s fishing for.”

  “Fish,” I said. That was possibly the stupidest question I ever heard. “You know, with scales and gills and fins.”

  “What kind of fish, you dip.”

  “Uh … the wet kind.”

  He hung up on me.

  I couldn’t believe he actually hung up on me.

  I called him back.

  “I am not telling you where that man went fishing, because you’ll just go out there and interrupt him,” he said.

  “Yes, that’s the point. I have something very important I want to discuss with him,” I said.

  “No,” he said.

  “If you don’t tell me, I’m just going to keep calling back,” I said.

  “You’re horrible,” he said. “Just so you know.”

  “I know, I know,” I admitted.

  “Mort likes to get catfish and bass. Everybody knows Hawk Point is the best place for that. Besides, he owns a little cabin on Hawk Point. About ten miles off the main road. And do not tell him I told you. He’ll never trust me again if you do,” he said.

  It must be painful to be that cantankerous.

  “I won’t tell him. And just so you know, there’s been a break on one of his cases and Peg needs to talk to him about it. I’m not just hunting him down for my own sake,” I said. Although that was part of it. I’m honest.

  I dropped Mary off at the skating rink in Wisteria because all of her girlfriends were going skating and she just had to go or she’d just die. The real reason was that Tony was going to be there. I could tell because she put an extra coating of lip gloss on, and now her lips looked liked she’d just eaten a side of bacon. I told her I’d pick her up at eleven. Next I went to Target for a super-duper can of bug spray, making sure it said DEET in huge bright letters. I guess I thought the brighter and bigger the letters were, the more DEET would be in the can. Then I headed out to Hawk Point.

  Mort’s cabin was a good ten miles off of the two-lane road that led into Hawk Point. It felt as though I’d just entered the wilderness. I couldn’t even see a telephone or power line anywhere. When I got to the cabin, I doused myself in the bug spray, holding my breath and jumping around in the mist of chemicals. I took my cell phone and my keys but left my purse behind. No point in taking it with me. It’s not like I’d need Gummy Bears an
d a checkbook to find the sheriff. It was almost dark, and there was a single light on in the run-down, grown-over cabin. Mort’s gigantic new truck was parked in the front. I swear, I’d need a ladder just to get up in the thing.

  I knocked on the door, but he didn’t answer. That meant he was still out fishing. I wondered if he took a boat or a canoe like Colin usually did. If he did, all I could do was wait for him, because I wouldn’t begin to know where he would be. I headed down to the water and walked along the edge, looking to see if I could find Mort anywhere or evidence of a boat. Like a dock. It occurred to me then that DEET wasn’t going to help me with ticks, and my skin suddenly began to crawl. “Mort?” I called out.

  I yelled his name a few more times and finally got a response. “Shhh,” he said. “The fish are talking to me.”

  I whipped around and found him sitting on the bank about twenty feet away in the opposite direction from where I’d been looking. He was sitting on the ground. Right there smack dab in the middle of all the ticks and spiders and mosquitoes. He didn’t even have a blanket.

  “The fish are talking to you?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Can’t you hear them?”

  “No, all I hear is the buzzing of the Amazon-sized mosquitoes that keep flying around my head,” I said. “And whippoorwills. Which are kinda nice. And crickets. Which are really loud.”

  There was a blurp sound on the water. “See?” Mort said. “They’re talking to me.”

  “Great,” I said. “What are the fish saying?”

  “They’re saying, ‘Tell that loudmouth who’s come to see you that she’s about ready to step on a snake.’”

  “What?” I said. Mort looked up at me, and I realized what he’d just said. I started screaming and jumping around. My legs were going in directions they hadn’t gone since sixth-grade gymnastics class. I didn’t even know I could still bend that way. Mort hopped up, ran over, grabbed me by the collar, and yanked me off to the side as I saw something slither past me and into the water.