Angela’s face hardened even more. “She didn’t deserve him.”
“But you helped Aaron find Fitzgerald, didn’t you. So you helped Mercedes get him back. After you helped Jack Francis by letting him out.”
“Now you’ve got it,” Angela said.
“But why?”
“I told you—she didn’t deserve him.”
“I don’t understand,” Po said.
“She just cared about Fitz as property. How much recognition he could earn for her. How much prize money he could earn. How much his pups would sell for. She didn’t care about him. Even when I took him, all she cared about was the money.”
Angela took a shaky breath.
“She didn’t deserve to get him back. But that was the only way to get her here. And I knew I needed to set Fitzgerald free for real.”
“You killed her, didn’t you.”
“Finally got there, didn’t you,” Angela said. “Of course I did. And Fitzgerald was the motivation and the bait. With Mercedes gone, I will be able to talk those selfish kids of hers into giving him up, no problem. They don’t want to spend the money or do the work. They’ll be happy to see him go. They’ll sell him to me for a reasonable price, and I can go back to showing him.”
“But Mercedes wouldn’t let him go.”
“Of course not,” Angela scoffed. “Grabby witch. She couldn’t stand that he responded better to me than he did to her. She would never have let me have him. She’d keep me away just to spite me.”
“So you killed her.”
“Right here,” Angela said. “Just like I’m going to kill you.”
And with that, she seemed to refocus. Still keeping an eye on Po, she typed a password into the keypad on the drug safe, and she drew out a vial.
“What are you doing?” Po asked, feeling shaky and trying not to show it.
“You’ll just feel one sharp prick,” Angela said with a twisted travesty of her old smile.
“You killed Mercedes here?” Po asked, trying desperately to distract Angela again. “They found the car near Aaron’s house.”
“Because that’s where I left it,” Angela said. “I need to think about where to leave yours. But there’s time for that.”
She started advancing toward Po, armed now with the gun and a loaded syringe.
“What’s that?” asked Po, nodding to Angela’s left hand, the one with the long needle. It was tough to decide which seemed worse, getting shot, or getting injected with a mysterious, likely deadly chemical. Getting shot was actually beginning to win out in her mind. “Quicker, probably, and harder to cover up,” she thought, with the small part of her brain that was still capable of analyzing the situation and looking for options. Instinctively, she’d been backing away from Angela’s slow and wary approach.
“Stop moving!” Angela snapped. “Or I’ll shoot you right now. Don’t think I won’t.”
Po knew she’d misjudged as soon as she moved, but couldn’t correct. Angela had anticipated her lunge toward the door, and Po felt the needle she’d been wielding penetrate her skin and deep into her muscle. And then less than a second later she felt the sting as Angela depressed the plunger.
Within seconds she started to feel a deep sense of relaxation flood through her body. An odd sense of well-being, even. Her anxiety faded and she felt an odd urge to laugh, though she wasn’t sure about what.
Vaguely she was aware of Angela standing a few feet away, watching. Although she seemed to be having trouble keeping her in focus.
“There, then,” she heard Angela say, as if through a fog. “See, that wasn’t so bad.”
“Stop! Stop! Fight!” cried half of Po’s brain from a distance. But she couldn’t seem to harness the thought. “I bet this is
how Mercedes felt,” she thought vaguely. “I am going to die.” And yet she didn’t really feel any anxiety. She felt another prick and a dark cloud seemed to fall. A sharp bark from Hoover was the last thing she heard.
CHAPTER 26
When Po opened her eyes, she found herself in a sterile hospital bed, wearing a gown and hooked to an IV with no idea how she’d gotten there. Just as she was getting her thoughts together to wonder, Kate came in.
“You’re awake!” she whispered excitedly.
“What happened?” Po asked. “I thought it was all over.”
“You lucked out,” Kate said. “Thank goodness. We could have lost you.” Her eyes filled and she fell silent for a moment.
Po patted her hand. “Come on,” she said. “It’s all OK now. Tell me what happened.”
“OK,” Kate said, getting control of herself. “Here’s the part I know.”
She took a breath.
“When Maggie arrived at the party, she asked where you were. We thought you were just in another room, but when we did a sweep, we didn’t find you. We called your cell phone, but you didn’t answer. So Maggie called Max.”
“That was smart,” Po said. “It’s sure a good thing I have you guys to check up on me.”
“No doubt,” Kate said dryly. “So, Max told us you’d gone to meet Maggie at the clinic, because there was something wrong with Hoover. But Maggie was with us. Angela had called her, but about another patient. That’s why she was late to the benefit. But she hadn’t said anything about Hoover.”
“Angela knew all about our plans for tonight,” Po said. “We’d talked about it earlier. She and Maggie convinced me to go to the benefit. Then she delayed Maggie. That made her story to me plausible.” She paused.
“Hoover’s all right, isn’t he?” Po asked next.
“Yes,” Kate said. “He was fine all along. Maggie thinks she gave him a sedative, so he would look a little droopy when you got there, but she said that won’t hurt him. And he seems to be recovering fine from the antifreeze poisoning.”
“That was Angela, too, wasn’t it,” Po said.
“Probably,” Kate agreed. “I don’t think we know how she managed it, yet. But it does seem too convenient to be coincidence.”
“So, you figured out I’d gone to the clinic, and that it was probably a set up, since Angela didn’t tell Maggie about it. What then?”
“Well,” Kate said. “I called P.J. He started for the clinic and called in for back up.”
“I’m sure he told you to stay where you were, too. Right?” Po said.
“Uh huh,” Kate said.
“And you ignored him?” Po guessed.
“Maggie and I called Max back and headed for the clinic ourselves,” Kate confirmed.
Po smiled. “You are my darling girl,” she said. “But you know that’s the last thing I would have wanted. I promised your mom that I’d look after you.”
“I know,” Kate said. “But I couldn’t have lived with myself if you’d died and I hadn’t gone to try to help.” Her face crumpled a little. “I just couldn’t.”
She leaned in for a hug, and Po stroked her hair. “I know you couldn’t,” she said soothingly. “And it’s all OK. We’re all safe, and that’s what matters.”
“Max ran over to check on Maggie,” Kate said when she finally emerged from the hug. “But I promised to call him when you woke up. The doctors weren’t sure how long it would take for the drugs to wear off.”
“Is Maggie OK?” Po asked, suddenly worried.
“Yes,” she’s fine,” Kate assured her. “We really weren’t in any danger. The police pulled up at the same time we did, and they surrounded the building. Maggie opened the door, and they sneaked in. They were just in time to save you, and Angela was so focused on you, she didn’t even see them coming.”
“It had to be traumatic to be outside the building with all that happening inside,” Po said.
“We were sick with worry,” Kate agreed. “It was terrible to wait. And then the ambulance came and they brought you out. I was so scared.”
“Thanks to all of you I seem to be fine,” Po said.
“It all seems so surreal,” Kate said. “I just would never have beli
eved it was possible.”
“That what was possible?” Po asked.
“Well, I guess I believed everything you and Maggie said about Angela. And she certainly seemed completely nice when we took Hoover in. But look what she was capable of.” Kate took Po’s hand again.
“It is shocking, I think, any time you bump into someone who’s really capable of hurting others,” Po said thoughtfully. “I feel like we can be kind of callous. You hear about people dying violent deaths all the time on the news and on TV. But when it happens to someone you know …” She trailed off.
“OK,” Kate said with a little shake of her head. “I promised Max.” She dialed the phone and handed it to Po.
The next day Po’s doctor released her, and Max and Kate brought her some clothes to wear home and picked her up. They watched her carefully on every step up the walk and opened the door for her.
“I really am OK, you two,” she said finally, as they settled her in her favorite chair and started working on a fire and a cup of tea.
“I know you are,” Max said with a warm smile as he piled kindling. And then he stopped, sat down on the arm of the chair and took her hand. His eyes seemed to cloud over. “But when I think …”
Po squeezed his hand back. “But there aren’t any might-have-happeneds,” she said.
“True,” Max acknowledged. “But we were lucky.”
He went back to fire building. “I don’t supposed I can convince you to start locking your door, can I?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at her as he reached for the long fireplace matches she always kept near at hand.
“No,” she smiled.
“Maybe you are all right, then,” he said.
Kate had been clattering in the kitchen, and when she walked over, she was carrying a plate of biscotti and a pot of tea.
“Sustenance,” she said with a flourish as she lay them down.
“That looks terrific,” Po said, pouring some into her favorite teacup, which was bedecked with thistles. “Now, tell me what you’ve learned since yesterday. And what you left out, because you were worrying about my state of health and didn’t want me overly excited.”
Max and Kate looked at each other over her head, but Po intercepted the glance.
“See,” she said. “I knew it was true. You’ve been withholding.”
Max gave Kate a small nod, took a seat in the corner of the sofa nearest Po, and claimed his own cup of tea.
Kate settled on the stone ledge that extended in front of the fire, her favorite perch since she was a young girl, and thought for a moment before she started.
“It turns out, Angela was setting people up all over,” Kate said. “So you were right, Po. All the trouble was connected, and she was at the center. She was really a master of deception. And the misleading phone call seemed to be her specialty.”
“What do you mean,” Po asked.
“Take, for instance, the day Aaron found Fitzgerald,” Kate said. “Remember, she called Mercedes to say that Aaron would be bringing him by.”
“Right,” Po said.
“Well, what actually happened was that she called Mercedes and told her to come pick Fitzgerald up. She knew from talking to Jack Francis that Jarrod was going fishing and that he and Melanie were going to meet some friends. So, she arranged for Aaron to be at the house when there were no witnesses. And at the same time, she lured Mercedes to the clinic at a time when she knew it would be deserted, too.”
A disbelieving Po could only shake her head.
“And there’s more,” Kate said. “After she’d talked to Mercedes on her cell phone, she called the main number at the house and left a message saying that Aaron would come by.”
“Did you hear all this from P.J.?” Po asked.
“Yeah,” Kate said.
“Surely this means Aaron is completely cleared of anysuspicion, then,” Po said.
“I sure think so,” Kate said. “He actually went by to talk to Maggie about it. I think he just needed to hear someone else say it was over. She said he seemed relieved, and yet upset, somehow.”
“Just imagine the trauma that boy’s been through,” Max interjected. “And pretty much on his own, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took him a while to get over it.”
“Then she pulled a similar phone trick with Maggie and me,” Po said.
“Well, it worked before, didn’t it?” Kate said.
“You know,” Po said, “I really wasn’t nearly as close to the answer as Angela thought. I was just asking a few of the right questions.”
“But to a guilty conscience, every time you asked another question it must have seemed that you knew,” Kate said.
“What about Catie?” Po asked hesitantly. “What put her in Angela’s path?
“I think it was the same thing as with you,” Kate said. “I’m not sure we have all the answers, but it sounds like she thought she knew more than she did.”
“Do you have any idea what?” Po asked.
“Maggie will know more,” Kate said. “But it sounds like Catie might have noticed a discrepancy in the drug log. If she’d mentioned that to Angela either before or after she brought it up with Maggie, that might have been enough.”
“So Angela suggested to Maggie that Catie could help out the Richardsons in their time of need. And probably told Catie how great it would be and offered advice.”
“Right,” Kate said. “And she offered to rearrange her work schedule if need be. So she knew exactly when Catie would be there.”
“And she killed her,” Po said softly.
They all fell silent for a moment thinking again about the enthusiastic young woman.
“Angela tried to frame Jack Francis for the murder,” Kate went on finally. “She sure had me believing.”
“I think Jack Francis had become a problem for her,” Max said. “He may have been a co-conspirator in the disappearance of Fitzgerald. And he and Jarrod both knew that Mercedes had fired Angela because she suspected her of petty theft. So when Mercedes disappeared, he probably threatened to turn her in.”
“On the flip side,” Kate took up the story, “he had a terrific motive for killing Mercedes himself. Angela probably had some evidence that he was involved in the dognapping, and he didn’t have an alibi. That seems to have been keeping him in check. But getting him convicted for murder clearly would be a more secure situation.”
“Clearly,” Po said, a bit dryly.
“I don’t have the evidence for this yet,” Max said, “but I’m willing to bet that Angela was stealing from Maggie’s practice, too. That could easily explain her financial problems. She was trying to implicate Aaron, and given all her other misdirection.… Well, you see what I’m saying.”
“Poor Maggie,” Po said. “How’s she holding up?”
“She seems to be managing,” Kate said. “But she’s been better for sure.”
“We actually suggested to her that she come by and check on you this afternoon,” Max said. “I think it will make her feel better to talk with you. And it will get her out of the house.”
“That will be wonderful,” Po said.
“I think it’s going to be awhile before she feels like everything is back to normal at the clinic,” Kate said, with a hint of her former worry for her friend.
“I’m sure you’re right, Kate,” Po said. “But hopefully we’ll be able to help.”
Max raised his eyebrows. “Helping’ does not in this case include stakeouts, I trust,” he said.
“No,” Po promised. “No more stakeouts. I’ve had my fill of dangerous pastimes and learned my lesson.”
“OK, then,” Max said. “If you’re sure of that, I guess I can leave you two unsupervised, at least for a couple of hours while I run some errands.”
“We’ll be fine,” Po said. “I promise.”
“Me, too,” Kate chimed in. “I promise.”
And they were true to their word. They drank the tea and talked. Made another pot and a batch of shortbrea
d, and talked over everything with Maggie when she arrived. And when Max and P.J. found their way to Po’s house in the early evening they were still there.
“I’d like to propose a toast,” Max said, looking at Po and thinking how grateful he was that she emerged from this experience safe.
“A toast,” came a chorus from the group.
“To the power and protection of strong friendships,” he said. And they all drank.
CHAPTER 27
It was with a light heart that Po packed up her tote to meet the Queen Bees two weeks later. It seemed to her that the world was righted. So many loose ends had been tied down. Instead of walking around with her brain tangled into knots, she could see all the pieces of the puzzle and the pattern of what had before been just a mass of jumbled bits.
The day seemed to mirror her sense of peace, with the crisp, clean Autumn sunshine flooding every inch of the town she loved. “What a day,” she thought with a happy sigh.
She found her friends gathered and waiting for her.
“I’m still celebrating that you’re alright,” Kate said, as shehad every time she’d seen her in the last two weeks.
A chorus of “me, too” and “that’s for sure,” came right after.
“I’m fine,” Po said with a smile. “None the worse for wear.”
They all settled in at the table. Without a group project underway, they each brought whatever project they were working on. Susan was paper piecing a dramatic pinwheel pattern in blues and whites on the machine. Phoebe was working on a baby quilt for a friend. And Po had brought the small cat quilt she’d made as a token of their last project—and the latest in her collection of quilted memories—to finish the binding. The same job she’d done on the full-sized version.
“I never did hear who bought our quilt,” she said.
“Oh,” Maggie exclaimed. “It was Adele. Isn’t that wonderful? She was by far the highest bidder, and she was so excited to have it.”
“And the Humane Society was pretty pleased, too,” said Eleanor with a smile. “It was one of the most valuable items they auctioned.”
“How much did they earn, total?” Selma asked,
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