Prodigal Son

by Danielle Steel

  “What’s your own marital status right now?”

  “I’m in the process of divorce,” Peter said with a stony look, wondering if he was becoming a suspect. It sounded like the chief was trying to find a motive, but he didn’t have one, except that he didn’t have any money and had lost all of his, and Maggie had inherited ten million dollars two years before when she sold her father’s mill, so maybe it did look to the police like he had a motive.

  “How long have you and Maggie e-mailed each other?” the chief asked harshly. Peter looked startled. “We never have.”

  “Employed?” the chief asked him. He already knew the answer from what he’d read on Google, but he wanted to hear what Peter would say.

  “Not at the moment. I’m looking for a job. My firm folded in the market crash last October.” The chief nodded and didn’t say more. And then Peter gingerly brought up another subject he wanted to bring to the chief’s attention. He had discussed it with his nephew before they came in. “A man showed up at my house recently, sent there by Walt Peterson. He claimed that my brother had influenced his father into leaving him, Michael, all his money. He suggested that he might even have killed him, or euthanized him. I think it’s worth looking into,” Peter said politely, and Jack shot him an evil look.

  “You really don’t know your brother, do you? And don’t tell me how to run my investigation!” Jack said bluntly. “Your brother takes care of most of the elderly in the county. I don’t think he’s killing all of them, or any of them. But thanks for the tip,” he said sourly, clearly annoyed by the suggestion. Peter could see that he was on Michael’s side and believed him innocent. He had also implied that Peter might be involved with Maggie, but he wouldn’t poison her if that was the case. But he obviously thought Peter might frame Michael to get him out of the way. It was a Machiavellian idea, and Peter wondered if Michael had suggested it to him. It sounded like pure Michael to him.

  The chief ended the interview a few minutes later, and Peter and Bill talked about it on the way to see Maggie.

  “It sounds like he’s trying to pin it on me,” Peter said, understandably upset.

  “Or me,” Bill added, as he looked at the paper. The story of Michael’s arrest was all over the front page, and it didn’t sound like the reporter believed it either. Michael was a hero in three counties. All the article talked about was his good deeds and accomplishments, and the alleged poisoning of his wife got a lot less attention. It said the matter was under investigation, and Michael was being held for arraignment in a few days. It said that Maggie had been poisoned and Michael was the prime suspect. The nature of the evidence had not been disclosed. And the article said that the possibility of other suspects had not been ruled out. It made a tremor run down Peter’s spine.

  “I’m going to be pissed if I wind up in prison because of you,” Peter said to his nephew with a nervous laugh, and Bill shook his head.

  “That sounds like my father’s work. He’ll get us both hanged if he can.”

  “They’ll have to have hard evidence for that, and they don’t. We didn’t poison her. He did,” Peter said simply. “We have truth on our side.”

  The chief of police was Michael’s best friend, and he wasn’t doing either of them any favors. It was obvious that he would have liked to attribute the crime to them, and not Michael, if there was any way to do it. And he clearly hadn’t liked hearing Peter’s implications about his brother’s elderly patients. He had looked outraged by the suggestion, but legitimately he couldn’t ignore anything, and he was an honest man. He had to add up the evidence they had and follow procedures. For now, Michael was his prime suspect, with his fingerprints on the two bottles of poison from the shed. He wouldn’t falsify an investigation, even for a friend. But it was clear to him that Michael McDowell was an innocent man. He’d been framed, and falsely accused. He was sure the truth would come out soon, and he was going to do all he could to make it happen. It was the least he owed Michael, his old friend. He had had an obligation to arrest him, given the evidence, but he did not believe him guilty.

  * * *

  Peter and Bill decided to go to the diner on the way to see Maggie, and the place was buzzing with the news, and everyone had another angle, explanation, or theory. But almost no one believed Michael did it. And Vi commented as she poured their coffee. She was a brutally honest woman.

  “I never liked your brother. You were a little pain in the ass, always getting into fights, and trouble. But you were a sweet kid underneath that. Your brother was different. He always reminded me of that kid on Leave It to Beaver, Eddie Haskell. He was always polite, but it never felt real. I see your brother in here all the time, usually with Jack Nelson. But when I read that about him in the paper today, I wasn’t surprised. I know everyone else loves him, but he never struck me as an honest guy.” Peter looked at her in amazement. He didn’t know a single other person in town who would say something like that about Michael. Vi had Michael’s number and always had, even now, with the astonishing discovery that he’d been poisoning Maggie.

  On the way to the hospital, Peter told Bill he wanted to tell Maggie what was happening. It seemed entirely wrong that she was the only person in town who didn’t know Michael was in jail, and worse yet, for attempting to kill her. But she had been too sick for them to say anything to her yet.

  But when they walked into the hospital late that morning, Maggie looked considerably better. The doctors had run blood tests on her again that morning, and the nurse said the toxic levels were coming down. Her breathing had improved, although they were still monitoring her closely, but her eyes looked brighter, and she looked happy to see Peter and her son. The one thing she couldn’t understand and kept asking them was where Michael was. He had never disappeared this way before, she couldn’t reach him on his phone, and everyone’s excuses for his absence sounded like lies to her. She asked Peter and Bill about it again the moment they walked in. And this time Peter could see that she expected a real answer, and she looked ready to hear it. She had been waiting anxiously for them for hours.

  They both knew they had a hard task ahead of them, just as they had with Lisa. Peter was well aware that this was going to be even worse. But now that she was more alert, they had to tell her, just as they had agreed on the way to the hospital. They couldn’t lie to her forever. The story of Michael’s arrest was all over town. The whole hospital was talking about it too, but not in Maggie’s room. Most people believed in his innocence, and that he would be cleared soon. People were saying that charges like that just wouldn’t stick, not against a man like him. Only his brother and son believed different. And possibly Vi at the diner.

  “Tell me the truth, Peter,” she begged. “Did Michael have an accident?” she asked him with worried eyes. Something was wrong, and she knew it, and she knew she’d been poisoned, and had no idea by whom. She assumed it was accidentally, and wanted Michael to explain to her how it had happened. He was the only one she trusted. She had worried all night that he might be dead and they didn’t have the heart to tell her. She wanted the truth. Not knowing was worse.

  “No, he didn’t,” Peter said, and looked like he was telling the truth. Maggie seemed less tense after he said it.

  “He’s not answering his phone.” Nor was Lisa. Peter and Bill had insisted she not tell her mother yet. She wasn’t strong enough to know. So Lisa texted her, but hadn’t told. Maggie studied Peter with a worried expression, as he approached her bed and took her hand in his own, and her son stood at the foot of it, watching her. They were about to tell her some very tough stuff, and Peter had no idea how she would take it, or how it would impact her health. It was an awesome responsibility delivering such bad news to a woman who was so ill.

  “You know you were poisoned, Maggie,” Peter said slowly, and Maggie nodded.

  “I know that.” She wasn’t out of danger yet, particularly with her breathing, but she felt stronger and she looked it. “I want to talk to Michael about it. I don’t un
derstand how it happened. Was it some kind of mistake in my medications? An error at a pharmaceutical company who made them?” She had gone over all the reasonable explanations in her head. And when she got home to her computer, she wanted to do some research on it herself.

  “It wasn’t a mistake, or at least that’s not likely. You were poisoned with an extremely toxic, lethal weed killer, probably in your food. It was intentional, Maggie, not an accident.” They had talked about it the day before, but she was clearer-headed now.

  “That’s not possible. Who would do that?” She looked shocked and frightened.

  “We don’t know yet. But not a lot of people have access to you, and given the symptoms you’ve manifested for several years, it looks like someone has been doing it for a long time.” Peter spoke in a low quiet voice, carefully choosing his words.

  “What did Michael say about all this?” she asked. It made no sense to her. She didn’t want it to. And Peter could see that she was still in denial. He had been at first too. It was the kind of thing you just didn’t want to believe.

  “Michael’s in jail, Maggie,” Peter said softly. He didn’t want to hide it from her anymore. “On suspicion of poisoning you and trying to kill you.” They were terrible words, and they hit her like bullets. She sat straight up in bed and stared at Peter.

  “Are you serious?”

  He nodded in answer. “We got the toxicology report back that you were being poisoned. And Michael had access and motive. He’s in jail pending further investigation. But with the evidence they have, they’re going to charge him with it in a few days. He has a lot of explaining to do if he didn’t do it. They searched the house a few days ago. They took a lot of stuff out but they didn’t tell us what it was. Pru says it was mostly prescription medications and some things from the garden shed.” Maggie looked speechless for a moment, and then thought instantly of her daughter. “Oh my God, how’s Lisa?” She was suddenly panicked for her and the effect this would have on her.

  “About the way you’d expect her to be. She worships her father. She blames me and Bill for all this, and she’s convinced he didn’t do it.” Bill nodded in agreement. Peter had said everything pretty much the way it was.

  “So am I,” Maggie said loyally, lying back against her pillows. “Can I call him?” Peter shook his head. And he understood her reaction. This was enormous for all of them to accept, and especially for her to learn that the man she had trusted for twenty-three years, and loved presumably, might have been trying to kill her, and could easily have succeeded in the near future. He almost had this time.

  “You were dying, Maggie,” Peter spelled it out for her. “Someone was doing it to you. It wasn’t an accident.” Tears slid down her cheeks as she listened. She didn’t want to hear it.

  “That can’t be. Michael wouldn’t do a thing like that.” She was sure of it, but she could see in Peter and Bill’s eyes that they believed it, which was horrifying to her.

  “People do strange things sometimes,” Peter said philosophically. “I used to think he was dangerous. He convinced me otherwise since I came back here. Maybe I was right in the beginning. We’ll have to see what the evidence looks like, but it’s not looking good for him at the moment. He’s the only one who could have done it. It was a pretty sophisticated substance to use, and well thought out, and carefully dosed, or it would have killed you a long time ago. Your doctors say you don’t have Parkinson’s. The disease was mimicked by the effects of the poison.” And Michael had insisted she had the disease. She fell silent as she lay in bed, with her face turned away, as tears rolled down her cheeks. It was the worst moment of her life, and Peter’s heart ached for her. He wanted to put his arms around her but didn’t dare. Things were complicated enough as they were. And with the chief’s inferences that morning that he might be in love with her, he didn’t want to give the wrong impression now. He loved her as family and friend, but they hadn’t been having an affair. Neither of them was that kind of person, and Peter was still hurting after Alana and the pain of the divorce.

  “What does Michael say?” she asked, turning back to Peter with a look of terror, her voice barely audible.

  “That he’s innocent. But the paraquat in your system says he isn’t. Or someone isn’t,” Peter said, looking grim. And no one else had access to her, except Lisa, which was unthinkable. There really was no one except Michael who could have done it, or would have wanted to, and they all knew it. And he would have known how to dose it. Michael had the opportunity, the skills, and the motive, if Bill’s theory about his grandfather’s money was correct. Peter didn’t mention her inheritance out of respect for her, but it could have been a major motivating factor. Ten million dollars was a lot of money, and Michael must have wanted it very badly, no matter how modest he appeared. Maybe he wanted it enough to kill her for it. Stranger things had happened. The news was full of things like that all the time.

  “I just can’t believe he did it,” Maggie said, deathly pale again and shaken to her core. But despite her allegedly “bad nerves,” according to Michael, she was handling the terrible news he’d given her with grace and reason, as she handled everything else. But she looked desperately upset and hurt. She wasn’t sure what to believe, faced with the news, and no word from him.

  The rumors at the police station were not encouraging for Michael. Aside from the evidence they’d gotten from his garden shed, with his prints all over it, and the lab reports about Maggie, the chief had gotten a call from the family of an elderly patient Michael had recently taken care of, and who had left him some money. The family was suddenly convinced that he had killed their father, after reading the account in the paper of his poisoning Maggie. And they wanted their father exhumed and examined. There were three calls like it the next day, from families who had been suspicious of him. And in each case, Michael had inherited money from the deceased. The cases were too reminiscent of what Peter had mentioned to the chief, and Jack Nelson couldn’t ignore them. Dreading what was happening and what might come next, he filed for permission to exhume. By then, he had to transfer Michael to the detention house in Northampton for the arraignment.

  Michael had contacted an attorney, one of the ones Jack had recommended, and he had agreed to take the case. Michael pleaded not guilty to attempted murder in the first degree, and he was bound over for trial, for the poisoning of his wife, and the local papers reported it again. He was held without bail.

  Michael’s fingerprints on the two bottles of paraquat from their garden shed, and the fact that no one had had access to Maggie and her food except him and their sixteen-year-old daughter, were both very damning. And Pru Walker had no reason or motive to poison her. And Maggie’s remarkable recovery over the next week, when she was not being poisoned, was additional evidence. She looked and felt better than she had in years. A police detective had come to the hospital to ask her who prepared her meals every day. She said that her daughter usually made dinner, her husband made lunch for her when he had time to do it, or Prudence Walker, if no one else did. The detective asked a few other questions about her medications, and then he left.

  And Michael still hadn’t called Maggie, which she couldn’t understand. Suddenly, the man who had been a constant presence and never left her side for twenty-three years had disappeared. She knew where he was, but he wasn’t calling her, although he had the right to one call a day. And she couldn’t call him. She had had no word from him since his arrest, and she didn’t know what to think, and didn’t want to believe the worst. She wanted a better explanation, and only Michael could give it to her, but he didn’t. He was silent.

  Not hearing from Michael was almost as upsetting to her as the charges against him and the fact that he was in jail. After living with him, day and night, relying on him in every way, trusting him completely, he had literally vanished out of her life, and was being accused of trying to murder her. She still didn’t believe he had done it, and she wondered if he was too ashamed to call her from jail.
This had been a terrible blow to him too, and she felt deeply sorry for him. She wasn’t angry, because she still didn’t believe it.

  And within a week, Jack Nelson had nine geriatric corpses waiting to be exhumed and examined. It was turning into a very ugly case, and Jack didn’t know what to think. Michael still said he was innocent and looked it, but it had become impossible to pin it on either Peter or Bill. All the evidence pointed to Michael, more so every day. Jack just hoped that the people they were about to exhume had died of natural causes. And Maggie did too when she heard about it. She didn’t want Michael to go to prison, nor did his daughter.

  Lisa begged her mother to take her to see her father as soon as she came home from the hospital, but Maggie wasn’t up to it yet, and she didn’t think it would be good for Lisa. Maggie felt that visiting him in jail would be too traumatic for her. And Maggie wanted to see him too, but since she had heard nothing from him, she didn’t want to embarrass him by visiting him in jail. She had written him two letters, full of love and support and her faith in his innocence, and he hadn’t answered. She wondered if they withheld his letters at the jail. Michael had not contacted Maggie from the day he was arrested.

  One afternoon after visiting Maggie at the house, Peter decided to stop in at the county clerk’s office on Main Street. Just out of curiosity, he wanted to do some of the research in Michael’s case himself. He wasn’t sure if what he was looking for would show up. He wanted to see if there would be a record of all the wills Michael had been named in, where he had inherited money from patients. Peter wondered just how many there were.

  And as he walked into the county clerk’s office, he had a surprise. The clerk was the older brother of a boy he’d gone to school with, and he smiled as soon as Peter walked in. They chatted for a few minutes, and Peter was sorry to hear that the man he had gone to school with had died in an accident several years before. Bob, the county clerk, then offered his sympathy for the difficulties Michael was in. He had been as stunned as everyone else.