The Secret Poison Garden

by Maureen Klovers

  “Mrs. Calabrese,” he said pleasantly, standing up. “Please take a seat. What can I do for you today?”

  “As you know, I’ve been investigating Jay’s untimely death—”

  “Mmmm, yes. Terrible, terrible,” he muttered. “Such a tragedy for the community. And for Angelica, of course. But it’s best to leave these matters to the police, isn’t it?”

  “Perhaps,” Rita demurred. “At least with regard to all of the technical details. Fingerprints, DNA testing, that sort of thing.”

  “Well, what else is there?”

  “The human side, of course. Except for a few serial killers—and I don’t think that Jay was murdered by one of them—murderers don’t kill for the sheer pleasure of it. They kill for a reason. So I’ve been looking into the psychology of the crime. Who wanted Jay out of the way? And, of course, that begs the question, who was Jay Stiglitz, actually? Did he have a hidden dark side?”

  “Er, hmmm, very interesting.” He stood up and began moving the piles of paper around on his desk. “Yes, I see what you mean. Everybody does love those ‘Dateline exclusives.’ Was the victim having an affair with her husband’s brother, that sort of thing. But I don’t think you’ll find anything here.” With a nervous little laugh, he began playing with his snow globe. “If you want to do that kind of journalism, you’d better move to New York City.”

  “Oh, no,” Rita said, “Acorn Hollow suits me just fine. And there’s plenty lurking beneath the surface here.”

  “Like what? A bookie has infiltrated the church bingo hall?”

  “Well, for one thing,” she said calmly, “there are allegations that your football players took lewd photos of unconscious teenaged victims and disseminated—”

  “Lies!” he shouted, pointing a finger and glowering at her. He put the snow globe back on the desk with a thud. “Slander. Don’t you dare print that. That would defile Jay’s memory and it’s so, so untrue. Just because Wendy Russo got it into her head that her daughter—”

  Russo. Where had Rita heard that name? She had a vague memory of a fresh-faced girl with a long, dark ponytail and mile-long legs. Probably a cheerleader.

  “Her daughter what?”

  “Was subjected”—he cleared his voice—“to some inappropriate, childish behavior.”

  “Childish?” Rita repeated, incredulous. “Childish is having a temper tantrum, like you’re doing right now. Childish does not describe committing a felony.”

  Technically, Rita wasn’t sure if it was a felony or a misdemeanor. But it had the serious feel of a felony. “Those aren’t children,” she said. “They’re monsters.”

  “They’re somebody’s children.”

  “So is Wendy’s daughter.”

  They regarded each other warily, like two combatants who have each landed a glancing blow.

  “So Wendy Russo confronted you about these crimes?”

  “Not me,” he growled. “My wife. She made an absolute scene a few weeks ago when she encountered my wife at the library. Poor Mary Beth. Wendy was insisting that I get rid of Jay immediately, or she would go to the police.”

  Dr. Walker glared at her. “And these are not proven ‘crimes.’ These are ‘alleged incidents.’”

  “Can I quote you on that?”

  “No. Now I think that it’s time for you to leave.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Rita awoke the next morning in a foul mood, keenly aware that her investigation was at an impasse. Half of the town seemed to have a motive—the family and friends of the humiliated girls (especially, perhaps, the apoplectic Wendy Russo), the girls themselves, the family and friends of the two football players who committed suicide, jealous Miss Van Der Hooven, horrified Miss Simms, jilted Craig Balducci, and Angelica, who stood to inherit.

  Maybe even Dr. Walker. If he had simply fired Jay, Jay could have sued for wrongful termination, and that lawsuit would have brought all of the rumors about the football team to the fore—as well as Dr. Walker’s habit of turning a blind eye. But if Jay were gotten rid of in the most literal sense, perhaps Wendy Russo would chalk his demise up to divine retribution and take matters no further.

  Yes, she thought, all of these individuals had a motive, but who had the opportunity?

  And that question kept leading her right back to Al Scalzo, Craig Balducci, Miss Van Der Hooven…and Vinnie.

  She double-checked her copy of the hospital sign-in list just to be sure but, as she suspected, Wendy Russo was not on the list. Of course, that didn’t preclude her from using a fake I.D. or hiring someone else to do the deed.

  All this thinking was giving her a headache. “Luciano! Cesare!” she called, and the Bernese came running to her, their leashes between their teeth.

  It was time for a chat with the widow.

  The cemetery was beautiful in the early morning sun. The tombstones were bathed in dappled sunlight, caressed by gently falling red and gold leaves.

  To her surprise, the widow was not yet there. It made perfect sense, really. Why would the widow be there before nine o’clock? It wasn’t as though her husbands were going anywhere.

  But in Rita’s mind, the widow was as much a part of the landscape as the gravestones or the willow or the river. She was always there, engrossed in her newspaper, reading the day’s headlines to her captive audience.

  Luciano and Cesare seemed perplexed as well. They pawed at the grass edging Thomas’s grave, respectfully sniffed it, and then cocked their heads as if to say, “We’ve done a thorough search, and she’s not here.”

  “She’ll come,” Rita consoled them, taking a seat on Thomas’s slab. But part of her wondered. The widow was—by her own admission—over one hundred years old. She was living on borrowed time.

  As she looked out of the cemetery, Rita had the curious sensation of experiencing it through the widow’s eyes. From this vantage point, she could see the full sweep of the river. She saw the tombstones of all of the town’s most prominent citizens—generations of Walkers and Von Beeks and Baldassaros. This is where Angelica should have delivered her final Our Town soliloquy.

  Rita’s gaze fell on the Russo tombstone. It was a gray granite stone, simple and unadorned, with a curved top.

  Russo.

  What had Wendy Russo said exactly?

  Rita wondered if Acorn Hollow’s long-suffering head librarian, Ursula Scaramucci, had overheard.

  Last January, Rita had brought meals to Ursula while she recovered from a hip replacement. At the time, Ursula had been most grateful and promised to repay the favor if ever she could.

  Rita decided it was time to call in the favor.

  “Yes?”

  Ursula’s voice was high and slightly quavering, exactly how you’d expect a librarian’s to be.

  “Ursula, it’s Rita.”

  They exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes. Ursula told Rita about her newest grandchild, “una bionda bellissima” born last week in Boston, and Rita told her about her investigation.

  Ursula was only too happy to recount the bizarre encounter to Rita.

  “It was a few days after the prank at the pool. I remember because everyone was gossiping about it.”

  Rita held her breath. She wondered if any of the gossip revolved around Vinnie, but she was afraid to ask.

  Ursula seemed not to notice the pregnant pause on Rita’s end. “It was about three o’clock,” Ursula went on. “I had just checked out Mary Beth’s books.” She lowered her voice. “Rather smutty romances, by the way. Not what I’d expect the principal’s wife to be reading.”

  Rita smiled. Actually, it was exactly what she expected Mary Beth to read. She’d be starved for romance too if she were married to Dr. Walker.

  “Mary Beth turned to go out the door,” Ursula continued, “and just then Wendy was coming in, laden down with a big pile of books. She looked disheveled. Her hair was coming out of her bun; her shirt was untucked. It was odd, really. Normally she looks so put together.”

  Rita kne
w what she meant. She didn’t actually know Wendy Russo, but she knew who she was. Wendy was the woman who used to sashay into church fashionably late, dressed to the nines, with her perfect brood marching behind her in matching outfits. Unlike the other latecomers, who had the decency to skulk in and slide into a pew in the back, Wendy insisted on marching her family to the front row. It was almost a parade.

  “And then,” Ursula said, “Wendy suddenly dropped her books and said, ‘it’s you!’ Mary Beth looked quite embarrassed. She said, ‘Oh, hi, Wendy,’ or something like that, and tried to push past her and out the door. But Wendy blocked her. She shouted, ‘You can’t ignore me forever. Your husband covered up a crime and if he doesn’t get rid of the perpetrator, I’ll go to the police.’”

  “What did Mary Beth say?”

  “What could she say? She tried to get Wendy to calm down and go talk about it in the parking lot. But Wendy wasn’t having it. She said, ‘I don’t want to talk. Talk is cheap. I want action. By the end of this week. Or else!’”

  “And then what?”

  “Then Mary Beth hurried out, meek as a lamb. And Wendy picked up her books, all in a huff, and dumped them in the ‘return’ bin. Made quite a clatter, she did. And then she checked out a bunch of books on how to sue people.”

  Rita heard the crunch of car tires on gravel and looked up to see an ancient olive green Cadillac sputtering down the path, a black-clad driver at the wheel. Not for the first time, she marveled that the widow still had a driver’s license.

  “She had a mess of fines, too,” Ursula muttered. “Fifteen dollars and—“

  “Sorry, Ursula.” Rita interrupted her before Ursula could start reciting Wendy’s entire lending history. “I’ve got to go. Thanks so much for the information.”

  She shoved her phone back in her purse and waved at the widow, who had parked and was now making her way across the grass. The widow sat down beside her, the Morris County Gazette tucked under her arm, and regarded her quizzically.

  “Were you waiting for me, dear?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Rita said, “I was. I wanted to consult you about the case. I think I need an outsider’s perspective.”

  The widow listened carefully as Rita filled her in on everything. When she had finished, Rita sighed and scratched her dogs behind their ears absentmindedly. “I just can’t shake the feeling,” she said, “that Miss Van Der Hooven has some key piece of the puzzle. But she’ll never tell me. She hates me far too much.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Everybody’s got their weak spot. You just have to find it and then”—the widow thrust one bony finger out like a dagger—“exploit it.”

  “Unfortunately, in that respect, Miss Van Der Hooven resembles her beloved bearded dragons. It’s like she’s covered in thick scales.”

  “Even bearded dragons,” the widow observed, “have a weak underbelly. What’s Miss Van Der Hooven’s weakness?”

  “Besides chocolate? Vanity. But of the intellectual, not physical, variety. She’s inordinately proud of almost having been chosen for the teacher slot on the shuttle.”

  “There you have it. Find out why she wasn’t chosen. My intuition tells me there’s more to that story.”

  “Does your intuition tell you anything else?”

  “Yes,” the widow said. “That you should talk to my niece, Lucy Dembrow.”

  “I didn’t know that you had any family.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” the widow said. “It’s not like anyone ever sees us together. Lucy, you see, is a shut-in. She’s eighty-five or eighty-six now and hasn’t left the house for at least five years.”

  The widow tut-tutted. “You know how old people get. A bit paranoid. She’s afraid of falling and breaking her hip, afraid someone will break in while she’s out.”

  Rita smiled indulgently, amused to hear the widow speak derisively of “old people” as if she—the aunt of an eighty-five-year-old woman—were not one herself.

  “I don’t see,” Rita said gently, “how she can help.”

  “But, my dear,” the widow exclaimed, “she lives across the street from Miss Simms! And she is the self-appointed neighborhood watch. She sits in her bay window from six in the morning to ten in the evening each day, binoculars at the ready, and records each and every person who walks or drives past. Complete descriptions of people, dogs, vehicles—everything.”

  Rita stood corrected. She had a feeling that Lucy could help her a great deal.

  A beady dark eyeball regarded Rita warily through the crack. “Are you the woman Aunt Emma called about?” the high, quavering voice demanded.

  Rita nodded. She found it so strange to hear the widow referred to as Emma. For whatever reason, no one ever referred to the widow by her first name; no one even seemed to know it. Perhaps because of her perpetual state of mourning (she had been wearing black since the death of her first husband in 1962), or perhaps out of respect for her formidable longevity, she was always called “the widow Schmalzgruben.” It had become almost an honorific.

  “Password?”

  “Podocarpus.”

  The crack widened just enough for Rita to pass through.

  “I hope that’s not a lucky guess,” Lucy said.

  Talk about paranoid, Rita thought. No one on the planet would hazard “podocarpus” as a guess. “Open sesame,” perhaps, but not “podocarpus.”

  But in this particular case, Rita was grateful. She had a feeling that Lucy’s paranoia was about to come in handy.

  A pale, veiny finger beckoned for Rita to follow her down a dark, musty corridor and into a living room that had last been redecorated in the seventies.

  “I can’t leave my post,” Lucy explained as she resumed her place on the padded window seat, tucking her floral housedress neatly beneath her.

  Rita looked over Lucy’s shoulder and was shocked at the view of Miss Simms’s garden—or what had been her garden, at least. It was now just a few clumps of bare dirt, with the lonely maple tree—drooping and now bereft of half of its leaves—standing sentinel.

  “What happened to her plants?” Rita stammered.

  “She ripped them out last week. Probably feels guilty.” Taking up her binoculars and scanning the street, Lucy added sharply, “As she should.”

  “You may sit on the sofa”— Lucy fluttered a hand in the direction of a large, sunken-in avocado-colored couch without taking her eyes off the scene in front of her —“and look at my logs. They are set out on the coffee table for you.”

  Rita took a seat and found herself sinking almost to the level of the floor. Leaning forward awkwardly, she thumbed through the rippled pages. Each entry noted the date, the time, the person or vehicle observed, his or her location, and any “suspicious behavior,” which ranged from “tarried while picking up dog poop” to “talked to himself.”

  Turning to the page for the Sunday that she had toured Miss Simms’s garden, she silently read, “12:22 p.m., middle-aged, plump woman with obviously dyed black hair and an air of self-importance, in an unflattering red dress, arrives in mud-spattered station wagon, license plate YGZ-4467, and spends one hour walking around Miss Simms’s garden with Miss Simms, taking notes.”

  Rita bristled. It was not the most flattering portrait.

  She flipped to the page for the following day, when her article had been published and Jay had been poisoned. But, beyond the fact that Lucy was overly critical, Rita learned nothing else. “So no one beside Miss Simms and myself went into her garden on Sunday the twenty-seventh or Monday the twenty-eight?” she pressed Lucy.

  “If it doesn’t say so,” Lucy said, “it didn’t happen.”

  “What about the hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.?”

  “I sleep.”

  “So,” Rita asked, “someone could have entered the garden between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. without you noticing?”

  “Of course. And they probably did.”

  “Probably?”

  “Well, possibly. At 3:37 a.
m., I heard a car door slam shut. Then a car started and drove down the street.”

  “It’s not listed here.”

  “Because it did not occur,” Lucy said, “during the official watch. But it woke me up, you see, and I immediately looked at the clock.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “By the time I got to the window, all I could see were the tail lights.”

  “What kind of car was it?”

  “Something large and high off the ground. An SUV or maybe a mini-van.”

  “License plate?”

  “Couldn’t see it. If I had, now that,” Lucy said emphatically, “would have warranted an entry.”

  Rita couldn’t quite see Lucy’s logic, but she decided to let it pass.

  Her companion suddenly leaned forward and pressed her binoculars against the windowpane, as if she were tracking some exotic bird. “Take this down, please,” she instructed Rita. “Man in black pants and blue raincoat, aged 60-70, white beard, walking small Chihuahua with pink collar. Looking furtively at the Joneses’ maple tree.”

  “I think he’s just admiring the fall colors.”

  “Just take down what I say,” Lucy snapped. “No amendments.”

  Rita did as she was told. She also, however, amended her own entry to read, “Raven-haired, attractive, middle-aged female reporter (looking much younger than her years), arrives for interview with Miss Simms.”

  Then Rita flipped back to the current page and set the book down next to Lucy on her way out the door. With her hand on the doorknob, Rita called back over her shoulder to Lucy, who had not budged. “Did you tell the police any of this?”

  Lucy’s response was as Rita had expected. “The police—or at least the men who purported to be the police—didn’t know the password.”

  So, in other words, no.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Hunkered down in the bowels of the Morris County Gazette, Rita scoured the archives for every article about the competition for the teacher slot on the Challenger. She jotted down the names of the officials on New York State’s nominating committee, as well as the highlights of Miss Van Der Hooven’s academic career. Perhaps the biggest shock was the accompanying photo of a fresh-faced, twenty-nine-year-old Miss Van Der Hooven. Other than her trademark beehive, it was hard to tell that this was the cynical middle-aged woman that Rita now knew. Slim and leggy, with a radiant smile and honey-blond locks, she almost looked as though she could be a student herself.