Cyanide with Christie

by Katherine Bolger Hyde

  She must have used her phone to look Oscar up on the internet, then recorded her findings here. The file contained all sorts of biographical details about Lansing – date and place of birth, education, employment history. None of that was anything to get excited about, much less blackmail somebody for. Cruella must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel if she thought Lansing was a promising subject for her little sideline.

  Then one seemingly innocent detail caught Luke’s eye: Mother’s name, Wanda Lansing. Wanda wasn’t all that common a name.

  Cruella didn’t seem to have followed up on that bit of information. But then, she wouldn’t have had any time or reason to. She was busy with the group from the time she met Wanda Wilkins up until the moment she drank the poison that caused her death.

  Luke pushed the laptop aside and pulled the departmental computer toward him. He searched the police files for Wanda Lansing.

  No criminal record to speak of. Few traffic tickets, cited for being uninsured in a minor car accident. One drunk and disorderly. He checked her biographical details. Born September fifteenth, 1951. Gave birth to one child, Oscar Lansing, in 1976; no father listed. Married – there it was – George Wilkins, 1998 to 2005, when he died.

  He couldn’t believe in that much coincidence where a bunch of less-than-common names were involved. Wanda Wilkins must be Oscar Lansing’s mother. And Cruella had been about an inch from finding that out.

  But why the hell were they trying to keep the connection secret? Oscar was staying at Windy Corner. So what if his mother wanted to rent a cottage from Emily at the same time?

  Oscar might well be ashamed of having his mother follow him around like that, like he was a baby. But that was no reason to think she’d go along with keeping their relationship dark. Wanda Wilkins didn’t strike Luke as any kind of pushover. Between the two of them, he was pretty sure who’d be wearing the trousers. Or the skin-tight jeans, in this case.

  OK, so Oscar was illegitimate. That might have been a little scandalous back in 1976, but it was no big deal now. Nor was there any reason they couldn’t simply have pretended she and his father had been married – casual acquaintances don’t generally make a habit of investigating people’s backgrounds. Unless they’re Cruella Crime, of course.

  There had to be more to this than met the eye. Luke leaned back in the chair and locked his hands behind his neck, going over in his mind everything that had happened since Oscar and Wanda arrived in Stony Beach.

  Then he sat up suddenly. He’d put his finger on it himself a week ago: Oscar was fortune-hunting, and his mama had put him up to it. Wanda seemed like the designing kind of woman who would engineer a marriage between her son and a wealthy woman, hoping not only to set him up for life but also to profit from it herself. She’d made no secret she was sick of teaching and envied Emily her easy life. That had to be it.

  Luke didn’t look forward to communicating all this to Emily. She’d pooh-poohed the idea of Oscar being after her all along, and he doubted this new information would be enough to convince her.

  Before he left for Windy Corner, he remembered he’d meant to check on Dustin-as-Billy-Williams as well. He plugged the name into the database and found nothing suspicious in connection with Cruella, but he did find one interesting fact that was too coincidental not to be significant: Billy Williams had spent one year as a student at Reed College and flunked out. Academic year 2005–06. Emily was teaching there then. He found a picture of Dustin at about that age and printed it. He’d have to check whether the picture and the name Billy Williams together would jog anything in Emily’s memory.

  After tea, the other guests trailed back to their rooms, and Emily was left alone in the library with Marguerite, who sat on the hearth playing with the cats. Emily sat next to her, and Levin broke away from accepting Marguerite’s worship to claim his proper due from Emily. After greeting her with a kitty kiss, he settled down to be petted.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you, Margot. I feel like we ought to do something for Oscar.’

  Marguerite’s delicately penciled brows went up. ‘For Oscar? What sort of thing?’

  ‘Help him to a better job. Do you realize he’s living in a closet on ramen and peanut butter?’

  Marguerite shrugged. ‘It is the lot of the adjunct professor. Just it is not, kind it is not, but it is the way things are.’

  ‘Granted, we probably can’t change the system, but if I leave, that will create a hole in the department. Not that they’d put Oscar in my place, since he’s new, but everybody should move up one, right? So he could potentially get an assistant professorship on the tenure track.’

  ‘But what about Lillian? She is taking your classes. Surely she is the logical choice.’

  ‘She never planned to stay more than a year. Peter has a job somewhere else for next fall.’

  Marguerite stroked Kitty’s ears with a thoughtful air. ‘Then perhaps this shift will happen on its own. With no help from you or me.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I’d like to weight the balance. Maybe if I talked to Richard?’ Richard McClintock was the head of Lit & Lang.

  ‘Tu plaisantes, n’est-ce pas? Do you know how Richard speaks of you these days?’

  Emily grimaced. She had indeed encountered Richard’s sarcastic bitterness toward her on a visit to campus a couple of months before. He appeared to take her sudden acquisition of wealth as a personal affront.

  ‘Good point. But he likes you, right? Maybe you could speak to him.’

  Marguerite shuddered luxuriously. ‘Oui, he “likes” me. As a man likes a juicy steak he wishes to devour. However, for your sake, mon amie, I will see what I can do. Oscar is a good teacher as well as a sweet man. He deserves to sleep in a real bedroom and eat meat once in a while.’

  ‘Thanks, Margot.’ Emily removed one hand from petting Levin to squeeze her friend’s arm.

  Marguerite gave her a sly look from the corner of her eye. ‘But I have one condition.’

  ‘Condition?’

  ‘That you get off the fence, as you say in this country, about Luke.’

  ‘Margot, that’s not fair. One has nothing to do with the other.’

  She shrugged. ‘And what is that to me? There is no law that a condition must be related to the request.’

  ‘No, but … I’m just not ready. I don’t want to do anything rash.’

  ‘Rash? How would it be rash? In my not-so-humble opinion, chérie, you should have accepted Luke six months ago. To have a man like that devoted to you – this does not happen every day. After all, you have waited thirty-five years to be together – why wait a moment longer?’

  ‘That’s what Luke thinks. But to me it’s more like we’ve waited thirty-five years, so why not wait a little longer? We were too hasty when we were kids, and it ended badly. This time I want to be very sure. We may not be compatible on every level. The passion is there, but we’re complete opposites in so many ways. I don’t want to risk it not working out.’

  ‘You have it back to front, mon amie. First you get married, then you work it out. There is no other way.’ Marguerite spoke with all the complacency of the never-married. ‘Marriage changes everything in ways you cannot predict. It is impossible to be prepared.’

  On some level Emily knew that despite her lack of experience with marriage, Marguerite was right. But they had a murder to solve before she would have time to herself to confront that question.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Luke arrived as the gong sounded for dinner. ‘Emily, I’ve got to talk to you. Right now.’

  ‘Katie just rang the gong. Can’t it wait till after dinner?’

  Luke’s brows drew down into that look that meant he wasn’t going to budge. She pulled out her secret weapon. ‘If we don’t go in, the others will know something’s up. You don’t want to give anything away, do you?’

  His mouth twisted. ‘Shoot, I guess you’re right. But the minute dinner’s over, we need to go upstairs where nobody can hear.’

  ‘
OK.’ She led the way into the dining room.

  The meal was civil but hardly relaxed. Luke’s impatience was obvious and made the others nervous – except for Marguerite, whose nerves were proof against almost any disturbance. Oscar in particular could hardly keep his hands steady enough to eat his soup. Dinner was finished in record time. Emily made some lame excuse not to join the others in the library.

  In her private sitting room, she turned to Luke with hands on hips. ‘All right now, what on earth is so all-fired urgent that you had to spoil a perfectly good dinner?’

  ‘Oscar Lansing is Wanda Wilkins’ son.’

  Emily stared at Luke as if he’d claimed the Mojave Desert had given birth to the British Isles. That horrible woman related to her newly discovered kindred spirit? ‘Impossible.’

  ‘It’s true. There’s absolutely no doubt about it.’ He spelled out for her the information trail he’d followed.

  ‘But … Cruella could have made a mistake. That could be some other Oscar Lansing.’

  ‘Everything matches up. The age is right, the education, the job history – you’re not gonna try and tell me there’s more than one Oscar Lansing teaching at Reed right now?’

  ‘Well, no, but – Then you could have made a mistake. It could be some other Wanda Wilkins.’

  ‘Emily, none of those names is all that common. Wanda, Oscar, Lansing, Wilkins – they’re not rare, but they’re not exactly John Smith. What are the odds more than one Wanda Lansing had a son named Oscar and later married a Wilkins? It won’t wash. His age is right, too. It all adds up.’

  Emily paced in a circle and came around to face Luke again. ‘OK, then, so what? Why should I care? I’m not proud of my father. So Oscar has a mother he can’t be proud of. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s a really nice guy with whom I have an unbelievable amount in common.’ She added quickly, ‘Speaking strictly platonically, of course.’

  But Luke’s expression didn’t so much as whisper jealousy; it shouted exasperation and disappointment. ‘The “so what” is, why have they been trying to hide it?’

  She fell back a pace. That was an excellent question. Oscar might be ashamed of Wanda, but she would have no reason to be ashamed of him – or to go along with his wanting to disown her. Emily felt behind her for a chair and sat down. Her head was spinning.

  ‘You obviously have a theory about that. You might as well spit it out.’

  Luke sat opposite her and took her hand. ‘Em, I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s my duty to say it. The only reason I can think of for them to hide it is because they’re fortune-hunting.’ At that word Emily snatched her hand away.

  He huffed but went on. ‘Wanda’s decided Oscar should try to marry you for your money. She doesn’t want to jinx the deal by letting you know what kind of a mother-in-law you’d be getting, but she’s too invested in the project – and has too little confidence in Oscar – to stay on the sidelines and let him get on with it.’

  Emily turned sideways and buried her face in the chair. Kitty, who had followed them upstairs, sensed her distress and leapt into her lap, nuzzling her nose against Emily’s cheek. Emily hugged her fiercely. At least her cats would never let her down.

  Though in this case, she couldn’t be sure who had let her down – Oscar, Luke, or both.

  She turned back to face Luke, who had risen and was pacing the cramped space. ‘I just can’t buy it. Oscar has never said or done the slightest thing to hint he has that kind of intentions toward me. He’s only ever been simply friendly.’

  ‘Maybe he hasn’t fully bought into the program. Maybe she’s still trying to talk him around.’

  Emily thought back to that inexplicable visit Wanda had paid her last week, and her whispering to Oscar as she left. She couldn’t deny it fit. And for all she knew, Wanda could have had a secret conference with Oscar during her other bewildering call that very morning – she hadn’t seen Wanda out, after all.

  But Emily would never believe Oscar had any intention of falling in with his mother’s scheme. Even if he was living off ramen and peanut butter.

  ‘So what are you thinking this has to do with the murder?’

  Luke stopped his pacing and stared at her. ‘Well, nothing, actually. At least I don’t see how.’

  ‘I guess Cruella could have told her she’d found the connection and Wanda didn’t want her to spread it around.’

  ‘Yeah, about that.’ Luke rubbed the back of his neck, which usually meant he had to say something he knew she wouldn’t want to hear. ‘I got the lab results too. The poison was in the amaretto bottle.’

  Emily didn’t need the significance of that spelled out for her. A chill ran down her neck. ‘So it was meant for me.’

  Luke nodded, his eyes dark. ‘And Wanda wouldn’t want to kill the goose she was hoping would lay the golden eggs.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets and his eyebrows went up. He pulled his left hand out holding a folded piece of paper.

  ‘Oh yeah, I forgot about this. I found out something kind of interesting about our friend Dustin. Aka Billy Williams. He spent a year at Reed about a decade ago.’ He unfolded the paper and handed it to her. ‘This face ring any bells?’

  The picture showed a young man a good thirty pounds lighter than Dustin, notably thinner in the face, with shorter hair and no scruffy whiskers but with the same truculent expression. ‘Billy Williams … I think I do remember him. He was in my Hum One Ten section. If I have the right person, I think I failed him. He never turned in a single paper.’

  Luke frowned, pouching his lips. ‘Seem to you like the kind of guy who would hold a grudge?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.’

  ‘Me neither. I wonder … could being flunked out of Reed make him mad enough to want to—’

  ‘Murder me? Heavens, I hope not. That would be pretty extreme. And he hasn’t seemed to single me out for any special animosity – he’s equally rude and nasty to everyone.’

  ‘True. Still, I’m going to talk to him about it. It’s all we’ve got at this point. Otherwise, we’re back to square one. Again.’

  Emily went down to the library with Luke but excused herself early. She was feeling unusually tired, and she was in too much emotional turmoil to enjoy the others’ company. She said goodnight to everyone, then Oscar reminded her she’d promised him an Ambien.

  It was a struggle to look at him, treat him the same way as before she knew his parentage. Or half of it. ‘Oh, of course. Come up with me, won’t you?’

  Levin and Kitty seemed to think this invitation was intended for them. They didn’t normally sleep with her, but tonight she would be glad of their company.

  Oscar waited in her sitting room while she fetched the bottle from the bathroom. She handed it to him, then turned to pour herself a glass of water. The glass needed rinsing, so it took a couple of minutes. When she turned back, he held the bottle out to her.

  ‘Thanks. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Oscar went downstairs, and Emily swallowed her own little pink pill with half the glass of water. She completed her nighttime ritual and got into bed, but despite the Ambien and the coziness of her furry companions, she lay awake for some time. Her dinner – delicious though it was, especially the chocolate mousse for dessert – didn’t seem to be settling well. Her thoughts wandered chaotically from the murder to the revelation about Oscar to the state of her stomach. But before long her stomach demanded her full attention. She barely made it to the bathroom in time.

  Once she finished vomiting – for the time being – she felt too weak to cross the sitting room to her bedroom. Her limbs seemed weighted and stiff. She slumped on the floor, feeling as if she might never move again. Her eyes and mouth watered uncontrollably, and her consciousness ebbed and flowed – but mostly ebbed.

  When it flowed again, the thought crossed her mind that she had never felt this terrible merely from eating something that disagreed with her. T
he word ‘poison’ hovered in her weakened mind. She needed help – fast.

  All the others were still downstairs. She dragged herself to the intercom, pushed all the buttons at once, and said with all the volume she could muster – which came out barely above a whisper – ‘Help!’

  Then her consciousness ebbed and did not return.

  Luke heard Emily’s whispered plea from the library, where he happened to be standing near the intercom; otherwise it would have been lost in the general conversation. Immediately he kicked himself for leaving her alone, now that he knew for sure she was in danger. He should have gone up with her – but he’d wanted to listen to the others in case anyone dropped any sort of clue.

  He raced up the stairs two at a time and burst into her apartment, calling, ‘Emily?’ No response – except from the cats, who were yowling like the world’s end. He checked the bedroom first, then the sitting room, and finally found her slumped on the bathroom floor. Dear God, why hadn’t he thought of this? The killer had poisoned once – why wouldn’t he or she try it again?

  He knelt next to Emily and felt for her pulse, sagging in relief when it fluttered beneath his fingers. Slow, though, and weak. The smell of vomit was strong in the air. He had to get her to a doctor right away.

  While his heart panicked, his brain went into crisis mode. He pulled out his cell phone and called an ambulance, then Sam Griffiths. Toss-up which would get here sooner. In the meantime, he carried Emily into the sitting room and laid her on the loveseat, on her side in case she vomited again. After calling Pete and Heather to bring in the crime scene team – he was betting on attempted murder here, praying for all he was worth it wouldn’t turn into more than that – he returned to the bathroom to see if any clue jumped out at him.

  The only thing out of place was the bottle of Ambien, which Emily had left on the sink. Luke picked it up with a handkerchief and dropped it into his pocket. That would be the first thing to analyze. It was possible the medicine was fine and she’d simply had a bad reaction to it, but he knew she’d taken it before with no ill effects. More likely it had been tampered with, though how and when, he had no idea.