by Judith Mehl
Kat wanted more information on the laurel poison so overrode her motherly attitude towards Glinna’s condition and headed to the front. Just as Heather walked in, quickly followed by two customers, Glinna motioned Kat silently back to the office.
“Is any of this appropriate? I quote, ‘A victim of laurel poisoning would experience nausea, irritation, drooling, vomiting, paralysis, slowing of pulse, lowering of blood pressure, diarrhea, seizure, coma, and death.’”
“Wow! Does that fit!” She paced in circles as she recalled the death scene. “I saw there was drooling, maybe vomiting. Of course, they wouldn’t exactly let me roam freely to check everything out.” She reversed direction and circled the other way. “And he already had low blood pressure. He was eating all that citric fruit and bananas recently. He had bowls of fruit in his office. The worst kind for his low blood pressure.”
Her mind flew around settling on partial thoughts, ideas. “He was ripe to die—it probably didn’t take much. I wish we could prove who gave him the fruit.”
They pondered how it might be done. For now, they speculated more as to what method was used. A honey cake? An herbal tea laced with laurel?
Kat jolted when she saw the clock on Glinna’s desk. She’d come in on her lunch hour to pick up the herbs for Annie. She hastily had Heather check out her purchases as Glinna mumbled that Kat should research the quantities needed to poison a grown man. Fortunately, the customers had already happily left with their purchases and didn’t hear. Heather, used to their posturing, just stooped to unpack the tea.
Kat raced back to the office, sliding into the open parking slot by the door just vacated by a late luncher. She said a prayer of thanks to the parking lot angels as she tip-toed through the puddles and made her way to the office. This was one day she was grateful that her job status kept her from wearing the too casual summer thongs like Bernardo’s popular styles. The threatened rains finally came early that morning, muddied the lot, and squelched hours of scheduled tournament time. Kat knew tournament personnel were scrambling to reschedule matches, starting over again each hour until it stopped raining. She settled at her computer to catch up on her writing.
She had pitched a written feature on the changing face of tennis to the local media as a sort of sidebar to the tournament news. Enthralled with the reversal in progress, she’d discoursed at length to her captive student worker, Cheri, in recent weeks. Tennis, from small towns to big cities, was seeing an upswing in participation. She worked on the piece in earnest with a dedicated focus that was admired by many. Phones rang repeatedly in adjacent offices, while the clicking of nails on keyboards punctuated the silences in between. Low-key conversations in the background were non-existent to Kat. Once she put pen to paper, or key to board, as the case may be, she was one with her story. It absorbed her until the last word clicked in place. She toasted the ending with the dregs of her coffee and hit “save” one last time. One more review would follow in the morning before she sent it to the paper, but she always let her work breathe over night when she could. Errors grew in the dark, she surmised, or more than likely she didn’t notice them on first reading.
What had been predicted as a dying sport seven years before had not only grown, but expanded. By making tennis fun and recreational rather than the cut-throat sport of the past, the United States Tennis Association and USA Team Tennis, not only turned the declining tide, but opened up the wake to include a group that had honed the sedentary life-style to grand heights. The mouse potatoes, The Gen Y’ers, the here-to-fore perennial Internet fanatics, were moving off their duffs and finding fun in tennis. A new pathway was forged, where learning was fun, easy, and non-combative. Stressing this, Tennis magazine said, “Clubs of tomorrow will have less competition, more cappuccino.”
She ran errands around campus, dropping off brochures and flyers to be printed. As she passed the open doors of lively and drowsy classrooms she wondered at the fine line that determined a great professor and a dynamite class. How much was the subject matter? How much style? How much the professor’s personal experience or teaching talent?
To her, life on campus seemed a continuing conflict between routine and the offbeat. The staff trudged through their days dreary from ordinary tasks. The faculty fought doggedly to create routine despite the constant bombardment of students hoping to cause fissures in the daily grind. The top few percent of those students energized the faculty. These students fought the mundane to break into a higher level of knowledge while the rest hoped to crack it just to stay awake.
Within seconds of returning to her office, the campus struggles and quandaries left her mind and she was on the phone to Maddy. “So how soon can you mosey on over here to discuss all those handwriting samples we garnered?”
Before Maddy could equivocate, she added, “If you come now, I’ll tell you what I found out about the murder weapon.”
Maddy, always gullible, jumped right in, “What murder weapon?”
“The door’s open Maddy. Time’s a-wasting.”
Kat was overjoyed when Maddy rushed in, handwriting samples clutched in her hand, but honest enough to feel guilty about her overstatement.
She raised her hands in front of her face in self defense, and said, “Okay, I’m just guessing here, but this is what I found out about laurel. . .” When she finished her supposition, Maddy seemed a little perplexed. “So?”
That whole grove where they found Ed Ambrose was mostly laurel. And Lauri, named that by her dad who was entranced with the laurel trees, had access to the leaves, the ability to make tea, or even honey cakes. We just have to find out how she did it.”
“Oh, is that all? Kat, anybody could walk in those woods, and they do. Why do you keep thinking it’s Lauri?”
“Fair question, when there’s nothing that really leads to her, except confusing handwriting. So, it needs a little work. I just thought you’d be interested!”
“True, but I think we have a better chance if we study these handwriting samples. Hightower had written a missive that was private, but substantiated what you found in the paragraphs he wrote the day before the funeral. Those paragraphs, with simple and straightforward penmanship, tend to clear him.”
Kat bent forward eagerly to see the paragraphs Maddy was pointing to.
She repeated her mantra. “Remember, even the provoking ones only hint at a potential problem. They don’t confirm that someone is a liar or a murderer.”
Maddy studied the notes Kat just made around Matthew Hightower’s paragraphs, listening to Kat’s warning: trait-stroke analysis, looking at certain letter traits, was used only as secondary information to aid in analysis. She, as well as many certified analysts, prefer to study the structure of the handwriting by assessing connections of letters and word, proportions of the script, and distances between letters and words.
Kat talked aloud as she wrote, “He has an overall copybook style that is refined but open. He also has an argumentative ‘p’ (a tall, straight stroke that moves high into the upper zone). It could mean he loves to engage in a debate, but nothing more sinister than that.”
She took another look. “He also has round-topped ‘r’s that are a sign he accepts things as they are and doesn’t make an effort to seek new information. He also tells it straight—no embellishments.”
Kat slumped back in her chair. “That pretty much leaves him off the suspect list, wouldn’t you say? Thank God.”
Maddy nodded and they moved on. They quickly eliminated John Simpson, Ambrose’s assistant. His variable direction slant indicated an indecisive person. The samples also confirmed that he had little motivation to do anything, which is why she couldn’t consider him a suspect—no direction—no cause to want the job—no incentive.
Paul Ruggiero, Ambrose’s business partner had topped the list. Kat hesitated. She shuffled through the papers and pulled his forward. The note was an apology for not providing a eulogy and had been delivered early that morning in response to a phone message Kat left a
t his office. He said he was out of town and would barely make it back for the funeral, which appeared to be true. The sample wasn’t enough to judge adequately.
Kat knew from Detective Burrow’s lecture that Ruggiero seemed to be cleared of the murder but remained concerned. “This bothers me some. His final stroke goes under the signature and moves to the left. Often a sign of caution and intent to cover up some aspect of one’s life, this could be significant.”
They vowed to schedule a meeting with Ruggiero as soon as possible, or as soon as Kat could devise an excuse.
Maddy flipped quickly to the next page. “You know Rita Mae Dobbs? The seventyish anthropology professor with Oxford shoes, calf-length flowered dresses, and graying frizzy hair? Your quintessential grandmother?”
Kat nodded eagerly, walking quickly around the desk to study the page. She pointed to strong areas in Rita Mae’s writing. “See this clean and even line spacing? With other things it indicates mental clarity and a sense of order, showing someone who plans ahead and organizes time effectively. The round, careful commas and periods suggest a meticulous mind.”
Maddy agreed, “Rita Mae’s such a neat and thorough professor, these clues don’t surprise me. But it was such a small amount of writing that I hunted up a note she sent me a few months ago. She declined an invitation to an event, saying that she always played bingo on Monday nights. Take a look.”
Kat easily found what shocked Maddy. “It’s this writing with double-looped ovals, isn’t it?” This means she’s secretive about something. Look here, where she wrote about attending bingo Monday night like always. Several triple-looped ovals. It can mean the words are filtered before they are written. Too many triple-looped ovals brings this into a potential area of deceit.”
“Maybe she’s just lying about bingo?”
Kat pulled the papers forward to study more closely. "Pieces of letters don’t touch each other, called segmented writing. It’s associated with hiding and deception. This just doesn’t fit the Rita Mae we all know—or thought we did. Let’s plan to talk with her.”
They reviewed more samples from Lauri Carmichael. She appeared to be a highly literate person. Yet she constantly made mistakes in the sample. Kat frowned. “I can read this several ways: she’s falling apart physically or mentally, because of losing her lover, or she is highly anxious about the person she is writing about, or what she is writing.
Kat received an urgent phone call requiring her to meet some reporters at the stadium, and they postponed further discussion. But she definitely wanted to confront Rita Mae Dobbs as soon as possible.
Chapter 17
Some writing presents itself with the letters spilling out beyond their allotted bounds. It can be an expression of impulsiveness, inner unrest or emotional confusion.
“Handwriting: A Key to Personality” by Klara G. Roman
The match raced to its conclusion as Kat entered the stadium, wondering what reporters wanted from her this late in the day. The tournament stayed on track despite the murder investigation, but torrential rains the day before doubled up play. Ted Wright, well paired with Andreas Stephanos, the Greek, broke his serve in the last set and only needed this point to win the match. The eyes of the crowd tracked the fast-paced ball. Kat stopped to watch Ted place an ace down the middle to win.
As she turned and ran into Daryl, the maintenance man made sure she was alone before lowering his gruff voice, “Did they find who painted the threat on the stadium floor?”
She barely reigned in her frustration. No clues, no fingerprints, no leads, according to the police. She begged him to keep alert to any talk and to let her know if he heard anything.
The vandalism swirled in her mind in cursive curlicues that signaled nothing. The handwriting, hampered by rough surface and a huge brush, revealed nothing, and Burrows, so far, revealed even less. Was there a relationship between the message and the death of the tournament manager? She vowed to address the issue as soon as she found a clue to give her direction. She was floundering at the moment.
Kat entered the press area as the last reporters left, receiving a nod and a smile from many, but no indication that she was needed. She’d brought the latest statistics with her, but most of the news sources were able to find them online. Students were scheduled back-to-back throughout the tournament to make all the latest information available on the university website. Jordan nodded hello as he entered the winning serve from Ted into the computer. The fan’s cheers echoed in the background, but the few reporters left were eager to depart and none spared a moment to chat with Kat.
“Jordan, who called from here asking me to rush over to help out a reporter?”
“No clue, Mrs. Everitt. I was entering data right here by the phone for the last hour and no one used it. Are you sure they called from here?”
Puzzled, she shook her head uncertainly and walked away. If the call didn’t come from here, what was it about? She had a special parking spot designated for her use during the tournament, so at least she hadn’t had to park at the back end of the lot when she arrived. Once the last match was finished, the lot emptied quickly. She strolled the grounds looking for any problems but most people’s thoughts turned culinary as stomachs growled on the way out the gate.
Harry Lambert, reporter from the local radio station, stood near the gyro booth dripping lettuce and mayonnaise on his shirt in equal proportions as Kat neared. He smiled between bites. Shaking his head sideways, he spread more lettuce on his sleeve as he claimed no knowledge of who called her in distress. They chatted briefly, and then Harry stumbled towards his van, literally eating on the run.
A student scrunched over a small round table by the hamburger booth. His ear ring was a thin band and unobtrusive, but he played it with his fingers like it hung heavy in his mind. He didn’t appear to be experiencing any emergency beyond how many French fries he could consume in one bite, so Kat left him finish in peace.
She speculated on the Satellite Tour as she traveled the grounds and watched the players and fans trickle out. Small towns, fast foods, no glamour, depression, tantrums and short tempers—-all part of the goal to make a presence in the Top 100. She wondered if any of them would accomplish that by the end of this tournament, which was nearing its close.
Conditioned by Nick to be more cognizant of her surroundings, and her risk, especially following the incident at the plant, Kat hesitated to walk out to her car. The players had left, the last groupie trailing behind. The lone campus patrolman had exited out the other gate just a few minutes before, and tournament security, exhausted from the heat, departed in a bunch, laughing on their way to cool drinks in the closest bar. Entrances would be closed soon, and except for maintenance staff, no one would be allowed in. But for now, anyone could be lurking. Kat dug her cell phone from her purse and called Nick. When she explained the situation, and her reservations, Nick talked her into standing by one of the few open food booths until he arrived.
His car screeched into the parking lot ten minutes later, and she could see him pulling next to her car and heading through the gate at a fast clip.
A quick turn caused her to bump into David Nettle, startling him so much he jumped back several feet and stammered an apology. Surprised she hadn’t seen him more often at the tournament she offered a friendly greeting. As tennis coach he would logically be enamored with the level of play here. His team had been practicing all summer and would take over the courts as soon as the tournament ended.
The grievance with Ambrose never kept the manager away before but there certainly was no reason not to haunt the courts now. In the past, she and Nettle had been friendly associates, though his attitude today belied that as he turned abruptly and raced away as Nick approached.
She met him part way, “Whoa, Nick, it’s okay; I’m okay. Nothing happened remember. I was just feeling spooked.”
“Who was that man that just took off?” Nick asked suspiciously.
“That was just David Nettle. He was here watchi
ng the tournament. He is the tennis coach after all.”
“JUST David Nettle. One of the top suspects on your list; one so friendly he shies off as soon as I appear?”
“Yeah, well, you’re right. That David Nettle. But he didn’t threaten me in any way.”
Nick combined a one-armed hug with a visual sweep of the stadium. While he was occupied, the tall, lean, shadow behind the tree sheltering Kat’s Camry blended into the deeper shades of the woods along the parking lot and faded away.
Nick pampered her that evening, cooking steaks on the grill, fixing her a strawberry daiquiri, and even cleaning up the dishes. As they relaxed on the porch she appreciated his efforts to keep her mind off her suspects by pondering out loud on the carpet caper. He thanked her for her earlier insights and brought her up to date.
"We discovered more information on Susan Echels, the Don’s favorite employee, Shag, and the latest in technological locking systems."
Intrigued, Kat settled comfortably in her half of the overstuffed love seat, tucked her feet beneath her and asked for more.
"The 'key' could be a computer keypad system that Susan helped set up when she worked there. Shag maintains the system and reassigns the numbers on a prearranged schedule. She could be getting in that way; we just don't know when. We've been there at night."
"Where is Susan now?"
After discovering not only the system, but her involvement, and possibly some puppy love on Shag's part, we put a trace on her. She has her own carpet business in Hawley."
"Wow, that's suspicious right there. Come to think of it, hers is one of a zillion retail and discount carpet stores in the area. Why are there so many?"
“It’s logical when you think about it. The Pocono area is full of summer homes, and new home construction as New York and New Jersey residents move further away from the city. They all need carpeting.”
Nick nestled closer and returned to his tale.
"Wait till you hear more about Shag. He's a real character. It’s my theory he’s helping her because he loved her from afar when she was Don’s lover, and he saw how much of the business was her work. He made it clear he felt it wasn’t fair that Don just kicked her out.”