One Taste Too Many

by Debra H. Goldstein

  Jane grabbed the purse from his hand. “We’ll talk about this!” Head high, she left the kitchen.

  The door panes shook as Sarah watched her best chance of finding out who was behind the Main Street development march out.

  “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” Peter called to Jane’s retreating figure.

  Sarah smiled. The image of Jane being slammed by the door as she sashayed out of the kitchen amused her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She stood and pointed to his uniform. “I didn’t think you were on duty today.”

  He winked. “I was earlier, but I ducked out to watch my son’s Magic City Invitational ball game.”

  “In Birmingham?”

  “Hi is on the traveling soccer team.”

  “I didn’t mean to take you away from his game.”

  “You didn’t. They washed out of the tournament two to one because of a penalty kick.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Like most of the parents, I was praying for a loss.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the end of a so-so season. We’ve been to so many games that the prospect of having to sit through another game tonight seemed like a fate worse than death. Better to feed them pizza and take our players home.”

  “But didn’t you want to go to the pizza party?”

  “Not particularly.” Peter grinned. “My ex-wife is the team mother. Anne is in her element at team parties. As long as Hi saw me at his game today, Anne and a team party were more than I wanted to deal with tonight.” He moved closer to her. “I decided I’d rather check on you.”

  She felt a tingle and didn’t know if she should scold herself or go with it. “I’m glad you did.”

  “The minute I saw Jane’s car in front of your house, I smelled trouble.”

  Sarah was confused. It sounded like coming to her mother’s house was his idea. “You didn’t get my message?”

  Peter pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and punched a button. Sarah heard her voice coming from his phone.

  He stopped the message. “I guess I didn’t hear it at the game.”

  “So how did you know where I was?”

  Peter lifted his head back and ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t recollect. Harlan must have told me when we were talking about RahRah.”

  She knew from his body language he was lying. Why? Then again, maybe he was a detective and figured it out, like Jane did, but, in his case, it was because he cared about RahRah and her.

  “Speaking of RahRah, where is he?”

  “In the laundry room. Want to be his hero and rescue him again?”

  Peter laughed. While he went into the laundry room, Sarah checked her cell phone messages. She read the text from Emily warning her Jane had overheard Marcus talking and was on the way. Sarah immediately texted her back: Jane has come & gone. Peter here now! Other than Mom, is there anyone who doesn’t know where I am?

  “Look who I found snuggled between the washer and the wall.” Peter carried RahRah into the kitchen.

  When RahRah strained to get away from Peter, he put him on the floor.

  RahRah shook himself and then walked over to nuzzle Sarah’s leg with his nose. She bent and rubbed him behind his ears.

  Raising her head to look at Peter, she continued petting RahRah. “You told Jane her documents were being questioned. Did Harlan or you find something?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned against a kitchen counter. “Apparently, Jane’s been scamming us.”

  “Really? On what?” Maybe she was wrong, but call it woman’s intuition—once Jane started to cry, Sarah finally believed she was telling the truth. She hadn’t stayed in the carriage house because she wanted to.

  “On almost everything. A lot of questions have come up.”

  “I hope they include the jewelry she accused me of taking.”

  He made a check mark in the air. “We’ll question her credibility on that, too.”

  “Thank you. What did Harlan find that clears Emily?”

  “I didn’t exactly say Harlan voluntarily brought any information that benefits Emily to our attention.” He pushed a falling lock of hair out of his eyes. “I wasn’t going to say anything yet, and I’ll deny it if you repeat this, but it might be a good thing for you to hire someone else to represent Emily.” He ignored her sharp intake of breath and the question she began. “Sarah, let’s talk about something else. I’ve already said more than I should about an ongoing investigation.” He mocked clamping his mouth shut.

  She stood and took a moment to straighten her shirt while she processed what he had said. RahRah curled himself into a ball at her feet. She was so confused. Only minutes ago, she’d been convinced by no other than Jane that Harlan was on her side.

  She needed time alone to think this through, but she got the feeling Peter planned to stay for a while. “Okay, new topic. Tell me about your sons.”

  “They’re good boys. The pride of my life.”

  “You must enjoy spending time with them.”

  “As much as I can now that they’re living with their mother. Anne prefers to have Pete and Hi spend time with the almighty Hightowers.”

  Hightower. Sarah racked her brain to remember where she’d seen the name Anne Hightower before. The contribution list. “That’s it!”

  Peter cocked his head in her direction.

  “I saw your wife’s name on a contribution list, but I didn’t connect her to Jacob.”

  “My ex-wife. They’re brother and sister.”

  She hesitated before slowly stating the obvious. “So that means you’re Jacob’s brother-in-law?”

  “Officially was. Why?”

  “No reason.” Her eyes tracked his fingers picking at the butt of his holstered gun. “I’ve always been fascinated by how people here connect to each other. There’s a lot of overlap between families in Birmingham and Wheaton. I’m sure you find that all the time in your police work.”

  He nodded.

  “I saw a picture of Jacob and his father. The caption mentioned Anne Hightower as a donor to his father’s campaign. Based upon her name, I figured she was related somehow. I didn’t put her together with you or the rest of her family.”

  “You mean her father? Mr. Anti-Development?” Peter snorted as Sarah nodded.

  “He almost won on that platform of his. Anne decided to take her maiden name back after the divorce. I guess she thought she’d politically do better as a ‘Hightower’ than a ‘Mueller.’”

  “Politically?”

  “She’s gearing up for a run for mayor.”

  “You mean we might have a mayor and a police chief whose family pictures share the same kids?”

  “I doubt that. Anne and I can’t stand to be in the same room together. We disagree on everything. She’s her father’s child. She wants to run on the same platform he ran on.”

  “So she was against Bill and you in trying to develop Main Street into an entertainment district.”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when she realized what she’d said.

  Peter’s hand was now sitting solidly on his gun and the vein in the center of his forehead was suddenly protruding. She tried to make eye contact with him to backpedal her comment, but from his flinty stare, she knew the warmth they’d shared was permanently gone. Or maybe it had never been there. Whichever was true, it didn’t matter. She needed to get RahRah and herself out of the kitchen, now, somehow.

  Sarah gently nudged RahRah off her foot in the direction she was walking. She bent over to the garbage can and noisily removed its top. She pulled the ends of the garbage bag up and tied the red closure loops of the bag together. RahRah sidled up to her. Using the side of her leg, she guided him toward the kitchen door.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I just remembered I opened a can of tuna for RahRah’s dinner tonight.” She reached for the door. “You know how fish can reek? Mom will kill me if I smell
up her kitchen.”

  “Leave the bag and sit at the table.”

  She put her hand on the doorknob. RahRah was still by her foot. “Come on. It will just take me a second to run the bag out to Mom’s can.”

  “I said sit down. Now!”

  Sarah took a deep breath, flung the door open, and prayed RahRah would behave as he had at the Civic Center. She was relieved when her cat barely brushed against her leg as he ran from the house past Peter’s parked police cruiser. Sarah tried to follow him, but she couldn’t control her feet. She felt the muscles of her face contort. Her arms flailed, and she fell to the ground curled in a fetal position.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  When Sarah became aware of light around her, she made a futile effort to get her bearings. She had no idea how long her Swiss cheese brain refused to listen to her commands. Eventually, she moved her head and watched her legs twitch. Another attempt produced the same result.

  She waited a few minutes more before she ordered her hand to touch her legs. At first, she thought her inability to move her hand was tied to whatever was going on with her head, but then it dawned on her she was cuffed to one of her mother’s kitchen chairs. Peter sat across the table shifting a Taser from hand to hand.

  “Peter.” Her voice was barely a whisper. She licked her lips before using them to haltingly formulate more words. “What are you doing?”

  He banged the hand not holding the Taser on the table. “Shut up. I need to think. You couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

  She wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but she obeyed him while she tried to retrieve her memories. The names Jacob and Anne floated through her mind.

  She moaned.

  He glared at her. “I told you, be quiet.”

  Sarah had no choice but to do as he asked. She wasn’t responding fast enough to pull her ideas together. Suddenly, one thought no longer was clouded—he had to be thinking about what he was going to do with her.

  “Peter, I won’t say anything. We can stop this now.”

  “Not for you, we can’t. Just like Richard, you had to stick your nose where it didn’t belong. If you’d just let Jane have that darn cat, we’d never have gotten to this point.”

  “Because you were going to pin Bill’s murder on Emily?”

  He stood, leaving the Taser on the table just beyond her reach. As he paced the kitchen, she stared at the Taser.

  “Bill’s death happened by chance. We planned to meet to talk about another buyout. Emily wasn’t supposed to be there, but I guess when he got to the Civic Center, something displeased him and he flew off the handle and called her to meet him. It doesn’t matter. If you’d kept your nose out of things, this would have been over without our ever proving a case against her. Bill died from his nut allergy. The tox reports will confirm that and the medical examiner won’t be able to say if Bill ingested the nuts by accident or it was a homicide.”

  “But people would still have thought her guilty—after all, she was there.”

  “Maybe, but she could say he called her to be there and note she gave him CPR. I would have said something, too, when I dropped the investigation, saying I accepted the conclusion that it was an accident, not a murder.” He leaned over the table, resting on his hands. The Taser was only a few inches away from her.

  “An accident?” Sarah shifted in her chair, hoping to get closer to the Taser. With her hand cuffed to the chair, she couldn’t reach it without scooching forward. If she did that, her chair would scrape the floor and Peter would hear it.

  A wave of nausea hit her. Sarah gagged. She grabbed for the edge of the table, hoping she could stop the room from moving in circles. As the sensation passed, she focused on listening to Peter rather than watching him again pace the room.

  “When I got there Wednesday night, I didn’t know he’d called Emily. I wanted to discuss our business, but Bill only wanted to talk about Jane.”

  “Jane?”

  “She was upset, so he was upset. I don’t know why, but he had a thing for her.”

  “She’s a firebrand.” Sarah’s mind wandered to her marriage to Bill. “I guess I wasn’t his type after all.” She forced herself to concentrate on what Peter was saying rather than her random thoughts. “Why were they upset?”

  “Bill was concerned because Jane was nervous about the Expo and competition. He refused to talk business until I tasted Jane’s rhubarb crisp.”

  “What?”

  “She begged him to give her his honest opinion of her dish and he promised he would; but, as he explained to me, he hated rhubarb so he didn’t think he could swallow it, let alone be impartial. He wouldn’t talk business until we tasted and discussed the rhubarb crisp he’d pulled from the refrigerator. We both took a forkful and Bill started having trouble breathing.”

  “You didn’t call for help?” Sarah blinked a few times. Her head felt fuzzy.

  “I was going to when I heard someone shout his name. At that moment, he gasped and was gone. I lay him on the floor to give him CPR, but I could tell he was beyond hope. I panicked and decided I better leave and let the other person find him.”

  “Emily?”

  “That’s who it turned out to be. I slipped into the shadows with my fork still in my hand—the only evidence I’d been there—and went out the back door. I didn’t know who found him until nine-one-one was called.”

  “Surely you could have explained everything.”

  “If I’d called nine-one-one immediately, but not once I left. Not if I wanted to keep my job.” Peter pounded his fist on the table. The Taser gun bounced slightly closer to her from the force of his hit.

  She tried to figure out how she could reach it.

  “I honestly don’t know how I let things get so out of control.” He surveyed the room. “If I’d called an ambulance for Bill immediately, none of this would have happened. Sarah, I never wanted anyone to get hurt, especially you, but you’ve backed me into a corner.”

  Peter stared at her with pleading eyes, as if asking for her forgiveness. She certainly couldn’t give it, but she could pretend.

  “I understand.” Sarah wanted to say something else, but she suddenly felt very tired. She struggled to keep her head erect so Peter would keep talking. “What happened next?”

  “Bill and I had been talking about him either selling his property or using the main house to move Southwind into, but if he sold, the carriage house needed to be unencumbered. For all intents and purposes, he already had control of Southwind through adding his shares to Jane’s, but he figured that he could also get control of the carriage house back if he installed her as the trustee. In anticipation of their getting married and his changing her to the trustee, he had an attorney in Birmingham draft a new will and trustee form.”

  “Draft?” Sarah wrinkled her brow. “The unsigned ones in Harlan’s office were marked ‘Draft,’ but the ones you showed us in your office were signed.”

  “And those signatures would have sufficed with Judge Larsen if Harlan hadn’t started poking around on Emily’s behalf. He complicated everything when he brought me evidence Bill had pulled a fast one on you with the carriage house and animal trust.”

  “Animal trust,” Sarah repeated. She fought to keep her head from falling to her chest but couldn’t do it.

  “Harlan didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?” Her words slurred.

  Peter picked up the Taser and went behind her. He removed the handcuff and, pulling on her arm, yanked Sarah to her feet. “It seems Mrs. Blair named you as RahRah’s caretaker.”

  “Mother Blair and RahRah.” Sarah raised her head and smiled.

  “Yeah.” Peter steadied her. “I’ll find him later. Now I’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Peter rubbed his hand over her cheek. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted this.” He push-dragged her toward the door. The police cruiser was parked in the driveway.

  She dug her heels i
nto the floor. If she allowed Peter to wrestle her into its handleless backseat, she’d be stuck until they reached his final destination for her. She needed to stay within the safe walls of her mother’s house.

  “Please, Peter,” she grabbed her stomach, “I’m going to be sick.”

  He ignored her and shoved her forward.

  She grabbed the kitchen counter by the sink. As she grasped the counter, a slight movement outside the window caught her eye. She looked away for fear Peter would see it, too. She clutched the counter as tightly as she could, but the hard end of Peter’s Taser stuck in her back made her let go.

  Sarah took a few steps, then deliberately stumbled. She tucked her head to her chest as she fell to the floor, rolling her body away from the window. Peter tripped over her but managed to stay on his feet. He seized the end of her blouse, but the material gave. He reached for her again.

  Before he could get a firm hold, the kitchen door opened. Marcus, head down, hurled himself football player–style across the open space to head-butt Peter. Peter sidestepped, allowing an off-balance Marcus to ram the kitchen table, bad arm first. Harlan, who had followed Marcus into the kitchen, tried to rush Peter. Peter raised his arm with the Taser.

  Sarah screamed. Harlan ducked, forcing Peter to adjust his aim. As Peter steadied the Taser, a tan shadow leapt across the room and sunk its claws into Peter’s outstretched arm. Peter jerked his arm up but couldn’t shake RahRah off. He swatted at him with his free hand, but RahRah held on as Marcus shoved Peter from behind.

  The Taser fell.

  Both Sarah and Peter dove for it, but Sarah reached it first. As she gripped the Taser, Peter slipped his arm around her neck and pulled her back toward him. She struggled to catch her breath against his tightening hold. Except for a few flashes and spots of light, the room darkened. With one final effort, she swung her arm backward and pulled the Taser’s trigger before everything went black.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  “Guess you didn’t need the cavalry. Though I wouldn’t try playing football if I were you. Two concussions in one week are a bit much.” Harlan sat in a chair next to her hospital gurney. He put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from sitting up, but she pulled away from him.