“My lips are sealed.” I drew an imaginary zip across my mouth, and got a relieved smile from Josette as a reward.
We went back inside and Greg showed Josette to the door. She climbed into an aging bright red MG convertible and sped off down the drive. Greg and I went into the living room and sat in our usual places.
“Was it helpful at all? Was she able to shed any light on the mystery?”
“A little, yes.”
I hadn’t told Greg about the relationship yet.
“One of the things I suspected after my last visit to Susan was that she was in a relationship with Josette. They’re gay. It was only a suspicion until this morning but Josette has confirmed it. However, that’s of no great significance to the job at hand, except that Josette was able to more or less confirm that Susan knew about her inclusion in Gloria’s will before Gloria passed away. So that’s something that Susan hasn’t been entirely truthful about. I’ll have to consider everything she told me carefully. But the exercise was worthwhile, if only for that.”
Greg nodded thoughtfully.
“Oh and there’s no need for the agency to be told about the relationship between Josette and Susan. She’s worried it might affect her job. I can’t see any reason that they need to know, it doesn’t appear to have adversely affected the way she performed her duties.”
Although it may have done, I thought. I wasn’t ready to tell Greg about the poisoning yet.
“If things develop to make me think differently I’ll let you know. I believe the arrangements are in place for the computer expert to call tomorrow. It’s going to take an hour or two, but I’m sure he won’t trouble you. By the way, where was your computer kept during Gloria’s illness?”
“It was in her room, because that’s where I spent most of my time.”
“Will the technician need a password to access it?” I asked.
“No, there’s no password. The only person who ever used it after Gloria became unwell was myself. Oh and Sally accessed it a few times as I told you before.”
“Well I trust you won’t be inconvenienced by the technician when he visits,” I said.
“That’s no problem. How about the other nurse, the day one – I can’t remember her name? When would you like to see her?”
“I don’t think that’s going to be necessary after all. You probably know that I finally managed to catch up with Paul last week?”
“Oh good, no he hasn’t been in touch. Is everything okay with him?”
“Yes.” It is now, I thought. At least for the time being.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Complicity
“Want to know about Josette?” I asked Lucy.
“Ooh yes, what happened, are they a couple?”
“Were and are, by all accounts.”
“The plot thickens,” Lucy said.
“It may have thickened but it’s still opaque. I’m not entirely sure how helpful the information that I got from Josette will turn out to be. She claims they met after she was employed to work for the Philips. I don’t have any way of disproving that; in fact I don’t really have any reason to doubt it. She did confirm that Susan knew about the will before she learned it from Saunders, the attorney; in fact she knew before Gloria died. Or at least she knew that Gloria had made some financial provision for her − so Susan hasn’t been entirely frank with me about that. I thought the Susan and Josette link might be more relevant to Gloria’s death.”
“And do you still think that?”
“They may have been complicit in that. Susan already told me that she was sometimes alone with Gloria – when Josette took a cigarette break. Susan had no reason to hide that detail from me because she’s unaware I know about the real cause of Gloria’s death. That led me to think that Susan may have been acting on her own, without Josette’s knowledge; but Josette rather put the damper on that theory.”
“Why.”
“Susan persuaded Josette to give up smoking.”
“Good girl.”
“If Susan wanted to be alone with Gloria to administer the poison she’d hardly have done that, would she? It meant that she wasn’t alone in the room with Gloria anymore. So I’m tending to the theory that perhaps they were in it together. Josette admitted that Susan was curious about how long Gloria would survive. That makes sense now that I know she was aware of her inheritance. Still, it’s only a theory.”
“Did Josette say anything relevant about Susan’s true identity?”
“No. But then she would have been guarded about that since she knows perfectly well that it was the real point of me questioning her. If she does know anything she and Susan would have put their heads together to make sure Josette didn’t give the game away. But she may not know that Susan might not be the genuine article. Even if she is, there may still have been a plot between them to speed Gloria’s departure.”
“Why wouldn’t Susan admit her relationship with Josette if she has nothing to hide?”
“To be fair I never asked her about it. I haven’t seen Susan since I realized there might be a possible connection between them. I didn’t actually tell Josette that Susan had told me about them, but I gave her that impression by means of my ultra-subtle interrogation.”
“I’m sure you were magnificent,” Lucy said, in a kindly but somewhat condescending manner.
“It doesn’t seem as if Gwen had any access to Gloria or her meals. Josette didn’t even know who she was, and Greg told me she had nothing to do with cooking. I’m satisfied that she can be discounted as a possible suspect.”
“Is she still after Greg?”
“No. I forgot to tell you – they had a falling out.”
“What about?”
“Greg broached the subject of a pre-nuptial agreement in the event that they got married.”
“Oh, that’d do it,” Lucy said.
“That’s why I’m careful not to accumulate too much money,” I said, “so that I’ll always know that a woman only wants me for myself.”
“Well, you’re doing an excellent job in that regard,” Lucy said sardonically. “There’s an ominous looking letter for you in the office from the bank. You’re not in arrears with your mortgage payments are you?”
“I like to keep them on their toes,” I said.
“So who’s going to sift through the print-out from the hard drive?”
“I will. It needs someone with a sharp eye and a keen mind.” I winked at her.
“I spoke to the computer guy this afternoon. He says provided all goes to plan you’ll have the material by Wednesday morning at the latest. He’ll bring it himself and explain where to look for what I want.”
“You will no doubt be delighted to hear that according to Greg the computer was kept in Gloria’s room during her illness and there was no password; so it’s conceivable that Susan may have accessed it. So your postulation about Susan finding saved emails from or to Gloria and deleting them is not beyond the bounds of possibility.”
“Aha,” Lucy said. “I was thinking about that some more. In my own time actually, over the weekend, which shows how dedicated I am. The printout should contain details of internet search histories too. Gloria might have conducted searches about Susan, you know about the adoption, whatever; plane crashes in Idaho.”
“I suppose that’s possible. It’ll be worth checking.”
Lucy beamed proudly. “And if it does reveal something important then we might have to consider that raise again.”
“And if not, and I waste hours looking for something that doesn’t exist, I may have to exact some sort of revenge.”
“You’re not going to drink when you’re looking at the printout are you? You might miss something important.”
“If I do either or both I shall be the only one who ever knows about it.”
“You know, I’ve been thinking; if I worked from home I wouldn’t need a raise, because I’d save on gas.”
“We’ve been there already. It can’t have escap
ed your attention that I used the meeting room twice last week. On consecutive days.”
“You’d save on gas and parking too.”
That was true – Lucy had the only allocated parking space at work. The rest of us had to take our chances.
“And you’re always complaining about the traffic.”
This was clearly something that was not going away. I slipped an ace out of my sleeve and played it deftly.
“I wouldn’t save anything on gas and parking because I hardly ever go there,” I said.
“Q.E.D.,” said Lucy.
Chapter Twenty Nine
The Printout
It was Wednesday morning. A morning so far bereft of either computer printouts or DNA reports.
“There was a delay in copying the hard drive yesterday because the expert’s car broke down,” Lucy told me over the telephone.
“So this guy who’s an expert in technology can’t even get his car to start.”
“I thought you’d find that amusing.”
“Amusing’s not the word,” I said. The word was frustrating. “Did you go with him?”
“No. Eric had a meeting booked so I had to stay in the mausoleum. Anyway the computer guy says you’ll still have the information by lunchtime.”
Eric was an investment analyst, whatever that was. He probably used the office more than the rest of us put together. In the unlikely event that I ever had anything to invest I’d have to run it past him.
“Does the computer guy have a name? Or is it encrypted or something?”
“He’s called Dan; as in ‘Dan, Dan, the computer man’.”
“Very droll,” I said.
The computer hard drive printout was indeed delivered at lunchtime, provided you count three o’clock as lunchtime. It was delivered by the man himself who lingered about as long as I remembered his name. He told me it was all there, except for things that had been overwritten. There was a lot of deleted material which was still readable, including the internet search results. He hadn’t looked at any of the material himself because he hadn’t been asked to and anyway he didn’t know what to look for. I nodded repeatedly and hustled him out the door.
I looked at the sheaf of papers now resting on my dining table and half-wished that I’d delegated the job to Lucy, but a lot of the papers were covered with numbers and symbols that meant nothing to me and almost certainly wouldn’t have meant anything to her either.
I had armed myself with an array of colored marker-pens, but before beginning to sift through the papers I decided to photocopy them so that I could keep a clean set. This was harder than I expected because the sheets of paper were too big for the printer, so in the end I gave up on that. I assumed the computer company would have another copy, or could provide one − no doubt at hideous extra expense.
I work well to a deadline, so I pretended to myself that the DNA result was imminent and that I had to finish reading the printout before it came. It was a long job and punctuated with numerous anti-boredom breaks, some of which required fortification by a glass of Jack Daniels, so it was late in the evening before I finished, by which time I had a pile of technicolor sheets that looked like a child’s first effort in art class. I was dog tired, but I decided to go through the printouts one more time before calling it a day. And then I saw it. Something I hadn’t been looking for, but something I couldn’t ignore. I picked up the phone and called Lucy.
“You still up?”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“I need you to come over here.”
“Give me two minutes.”
Lucy was as good as her word. During the two minutes I put some coffee on to brew. We sat down together on the sofa.
“Kane, what is it?” she said. “You look exhausted.” Lucy was right. I was exhausted. It was mental, not physical exhaustion, but had drained me in a way that even running a marathon wouldn’t have done.
“You know what, Lucy?” I said, “The evidence of murder is an unwanted distraction in this case and I wish to God that it hadn’t happened. I was hired to find out if Susan Granger is who she says she is – no more and no less. Now that we have DNA from her and Gloria that matter will be determined soon beyond doubt. Job done? No, job not done, because we now know Gloria was murdered. The question is this: can I separate my moral obligation to carry the investigation through to its ultimate conclusion from my original professional obligation, which was, and still is, limited to establishing Susan’s true identity?”
“Yes, I think that it’s exactly what you should do; confine yourself to the job you were hired to do,” Lucy said. “The matter of who killed Gloria is a matter for the police, or the coroner. If the DNA shows that Susan is genuine, then the question of whether Gloria was compos mentis when she made her will or whether there was any manipulation by Susan is a matter for the family to deal with. It’s not your problem. You can’t be expected to resolve all these matters. It’s not your job.”
“Thanks, Lucy. I think you’re right. And, joking aside, you know how much I value your opinion − yours more than anybody’s. But the next question is a more difficult one. Do I tell what I know about the real cause of Gloria’s death to Gloria’s family, or do I tell the police, or do I tell no-one? This seems to me to be more of an ethical than a legal question. When all’s said and done Gloria’s life was effectively over before she was poisoned. Would a police investigation benefit anyone? In the final analysis does it really matter?”
Lucy thought this over for a while and sipped the coffee I’d made for her. “Can you put some of your medicine in this to liven it up a bit?” she said.
She handed me her cup and I walked over to the kitchen and put a small measure of whiskey in her coffee then carried it back to her. She sipped it and then hunched her shoulders and shivered as the whiskey hit. After a while she said:
“I don’t think so. Like I said, the whole matter of the murder was never part of your job. Wouldn’t telling the police or the family about the poisoning simply open up a hornets’ nest of misery. And what would it achieve? Your job was to find out if Susan was really Gloria’s daughter. You’re not on some sort of crusade.”
Lucy and I sat ruminating about all of this. After a while Lucy walked over and switched off the living room light. Then she came and sat next to me on the sofa. She put her arm around me and buried her head in my shoulder.
“Leave it alone Kane, you’ve done enough,” she said.
We sat like that for a long time in the darkness. After a while Lucy stood up and took hold of my hand.
“Come on Kane,” she said. “Let’s go to bed.”
Chapter Thirty
The Affidavit
It was Thursday morning. Lucy and I were up with the lark; possibly earlier than the lark. It was hard to tell since there was a paucity of larks in our neighborhood. She cooked us breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast and made some fresh coffee. We sat and ate on the porch. At eight Lucy went back to her place to get ready for work. At eight thirty she stopped by at my place again on her way to the office.
“Let me know as soon as you hear from Jill,” she said. “And hey,” she said, pinching my cheek, “let me see those Kane canines.”
I grinned at her, stood up and gave her a bear hug. “Thanks, Lucy,” I said. “You’re a gem.”
I showered and shaved and put on a robe. I drank another coffee. Then another. It was nearly eleven and Jill still hadn’t called. It had been nearly five days now. I knew that it probably wasn’t long enough, but I still worried that perhaps there was a problem. They’d got the blood mixed up. The lab had burned down. Jill had been taken ill because of a wicked virus that had escaped from a test tube. The possibilities were endless, so I decided not to torture myself any more. I was half inclined to go back to bed where I knew that the natural scent of Lucy’s naked body would still be lingering on the sheets. And then the phone rang. It was Jill. She was faxing me the report and a covering letter summarizing the results in layman
’s terms. I read the report and the letter and then called Susan.
“I’ve got some good news about the will,” I said. “If you’ve got work you’d better call in sick. I’ll have to see Gloria’s attorney later but I’ll come and see you first.”
By eleven thirty I was dressed and in the Chevy with Jill’s report and letter sitting beside me on the passenger seat to keep me company. I headed north. I was on the way to my last visit to Susan. Her car was parked outside so I trudged up the stairs and knocked. She was eating a piece of toast and it was in her hand when she opened the door. She said she was pleased to see me. I let her make me a cup of tea and then we sat down opposite each other, on either side of her wooden table.
“So what’s the news?” she said.
I looked at her for a while, unable to decipher the expression on her face.
“I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely frank with you Susan. It’s true that I’m currently working for the executors of Gloria’s estate, but I’m also a private investigator.”
I slipped one of my regular cards between my fore and middle fingers of my right hand and held it out for her. She took it but didn’t look at it.
“The charade’s over Susan. I’ve had a conclusive DNA comparison done. It turned out that the hospital that treated Gloria before you met her had retained some of her blood.”
I placed Jill’s report on the table in front of her with the letter on top. She showed no visible emotion.
“It’s rather technical, but there’s a covering letter from the forensic scientist who conducted the examination written in plain English.”
Susan gave a cursory look at the documents, half turning the pages towards her.
“So what are you going to do then?” she said.
“That rather depends. If you co-operate with me fully you won’t need to hear from me again. If you’re not prepared to co-operate then I shall probably have to refer the matter to the police.”
“What for? I haven’t committed any crime. It was Gloria’s choice to leave me the money, and anyway I haven’t got it. Whatever happened was between Gloria and me.”
FORGET ME NOT (Mark Kane Mysteries Book One) Page 18