Sarah Booth Delaney

by Sarah Booth Delaney 01-06 (lit)

  "Would you like to work as my photographer at the memorial service?" She grinned wickedly.

  "I'd love it." Once again, Cece had come through with the perfect entree for me.

  "You do know how to use a camera, don't you?"

  "Sure." I did, in a fashion. How hard could it be? "I studied photography in college. And I made an A." True, as far as it went. I had shown what the professor called "artistic flair," even if I was a little shaky on the technical aspects.

  "I'll see you at one o'clock, at the chapel. We need to set up and discuss the shots. Father McGuire is officially in charge, and this is one of the biggest things that's ever happened in Zinnia. I'm counting on you not to screw this up, Sarah Booth."

  "Yeah, sure. Lawrence was Catholic?"

  She shrugged one shoulder. "It doesn't really matter. The priest is agreeable, and he loved Lawrence's books."

  "At one. I'll be there. Bring the camera." I crammed the rest of the Danish into my mouth, picked up the second cup of coffee, and left. There was a lot to do before the service.

  Harold's car was not at the bank. I didn't intend to stop by to see him, but I hadn't been able to resist checking on his whereabouts. Dark images of what Brianna might be doing to him snaked through my brain.

  I pushed them aside as unworthy of mental energy and drove to the sheriff's office. The courthouse was in a dither as secretaries put up notices stating that they were closing for the funeral. If celebrities hadn't been coming to town, I wondered if Lawrence would have gotten this kind of attention.

  There was a carnival air in the rotunda, with laughter echoing off the old tile as I made for the sheriff's office. Coleman, at least, was sitting at his desk, lounged back, with a steaming cup of coffee on the blotter in front of him.

  He sat up when he saw me, then stood. For a moment we stared at each other. There was something he wanted to ask, but he was calculating his odds. Apparently he decided against a direct question because he signaled me into an empty interrogation room, nodded at a chair, and closed the door.

  "Coffee?"

  I shook my head. "No thanks. I had some with Cece."

  "I wish she'da held off on her story until after the fact. Everyone around here's gone crazy."

  "I saw."

  "It's a memorial service for a man most of them didn't know. All they want is to rub up against someone famous."

  Coleman was put off by all of the hoopla. "I wonder how Lawrence would feel about all of this," I said.

  "I didn't know him very well, but I don't think anyone would want this commotion." He waved his hand toward the door.

  We talked a minute about traffic and how two of his deputies were already locating parking for the hordes of rubberneckers. Burial was to take place on the grounds of Magnolia Place, where he'd lived for the past twenty years. The Caldwell family had offered a place in the small cemetery there, and Harold had agreed to it. That part, at least, would be private. I forced myself to sit still in my seat, waiting for Coleman to come around to the point we both knew we had to talk about. Instead, high school days cropped up, and we chatted a minute about that. It was clear he'd decided to outwait me.

  Patience was never my strong suit. "Did you find any matching prints?" I asked.

  He folded his hands on the table that was between us. "No. We got prints, but they didn't match any we had on file. None in the national registry. I didn't think we would."

  It was a long shot, but I'd been hopeful. Now I was disappointed, and I didn't bother to hide it. "So we don't know who handled the bag. What a bust."

  "We do know that Lawrence didn't touch it."

  If he didn't touch it, he didn't put it in the cabinet. Which was interesting in and of itself. "How did you find that out? His prints were on file?"

  He shook his head. "I went over and fingerprinted the body."

  It was a grotesque image, but I was grateful to Coleman for his thoroughness. He'd also earned my respect. He'd figured the bag had come from Lawrence's home or else he wouldn't have gone to the trouble to check the prints.

  "So that leaves us nowhere."

  "Maybe, maybe not." He went to his desk and got his coffee, coming back into the interview room and sitting down. He stared into his cup as if the secrets of the universe might be revealed. Damn him, he was playing me like a cheap harmonica. He knew I couldn't stand the role of patient waiter.

  "What?" I demanded.

  "Harold Erkwell is hosting a reception after the funeral."

  A flash of annoyance shot over my skin, causing a flush. Coleman noted it but said nothing. Harold hadn't bothered to invite me. Hadn't mentioned it. Neither had Tinkie. I'm sure she'd assumed I was invited, but I wasn't.

  "Are you going to it?" Coleman asked.

  "As a photographer for the newspaper." Thank goodness for Cece.

  "I know Erkwell, and he won't be serving in paper cups. If you could snag a few of the glasses that people drink out of . . ."

  I didn't know whether to be flattered or put out that Coleman would think me capable of such a thing. I decided on flattered. "I can. Whose prints would you want?"

  He smiled slowly. "You're the PI, you tell me."

  "No suspects of your own?" I countered.

  He held his smile but it was by an act of will. "You're not going to like this, but I do have a suspect."

  "Who?" I was all ears.

  "Harold Erkwell."

  I almost gasped. "Harold?"

  Coleman nodded. "I've always liked Harold, but his connections to the case are too strong. His aunt was involved with Lawrence all those years ago. There was a murder then, a senator's son. Harold is claiming to be the executor of the estate, although there are no witnesses on the document he purports to be the final will. He visited Lawrence's home the night of the murder— as far as I can tell, he was the last one to visit. Toting up all the evidence we have, Harold has a bigger stack than anyone."

  "He isn't a killer, though." Harold really wasn't the kind of man who would do such a thing. He had ethics.

  "Maybe not by himself, but he's involved with Brianna Rathbone."

  I knew by the way he said her name that he wasn't overly impressed with Brianna. Maybe Coleman remembered her from high school, though boys seldom remembered the same things that girls did. I'm sure Brianna never gave him the time of day. Coleman was a farm boy, one with keen intellect and athletic prowess. But he didn't have a trust fund or a fancy car. In Brianna's world, he didn't exist.

  "You suspect Brianna?"

  "If I had to guess, I'd say she was behind it. But I'm afraid she's the kind of woman who always finds a man to do her dirty deeds. Harold seems like the perfect fall guy to me."

  16

  Doc Sawyer sat on the slanted emergency ramp at the back of the hospital and lit up a Salem. "Coumadin is probably the easiest poison to obtain this day and age. Like I said earlier, it's a big selling point with exterminators because the critters don't die in the house, causing such a stink."

  "Do you have to sign for it when you buy it?" Back when I was a child, local pharmacies sold strychnine to poison "nuisance" animals such as raccoons. The purchaser had only to write a name in a book, signing for the poison. As a system of accountability, it was pathetic. Any name would do—no one checked.

  "Not as far as I know," Doc said. "Buy it off the shelf or buy it from an exterminator. It's legal stuff."

  "How fast does it work?" I looked longingly at his cigarette, the smoke curling upward from his fingers in a dancing pattern. Since I couldn't make any progress on my case by working on motive, I decided that opportunity was the angle I'd take. I already knew that Lawrence had been taking the poison for a couple of weeks. Now I needed to find out exactly how the stuff worked.

  "A high dosage actually causes the blood to thin so rapidly that internal hemorrhaging occurs rather quickly. It's the internal bleeding that drives the rats toward water. An act of final desperation."

  He pulled hard on the cigarette, making
the ash glow red and burn long. He didn't look at me. When he lowered his hand, I saw that it was shaking.

  "I haven't had a drink today," he said. "Hard on my nerves, but I think it's time to quit."

  I wanted to put my hand on his arm or somehow convey a sense of encouragement, but I didn't want to presume. In my own family, I'd seen the ravages of alcohol. Cousins, uncles. Some were legendary, like Uncle Lyle Crabtree and my great-great-uncle William Carter Delaney, who survived fighting in the War Between the States only to break his neck in a fall from a horse while riding drunk through the countryside jumping fences with a naked whore on the back of his horse. The whore, luckily, was uninjured. My great-great-uncle had made the accurate pronouncement that "she had a lot of bounce."

  "Family propensity," was all I said. In the long run, what I thought or felt about his decision had no merit in the grueling fight he'd have against the demons of the bottle.

  "I am, therefore I drink." He chuckled and I knew it was okay to let it go.

  "In the end, could you tell if Lawrence had been given a massive dose of the poison?" I forced my voice to remain level, professional. There had been so much blood. I blocked out the memory of Lawrence, a man of such charm and grace, lying in a pool of it. Instead, I made myself hang on to the fact that the bag of rat poison was gaining in importance. I had discovered an important clue.

  "No, he'd ingested small doses. That's the problem here. Coumadin is also used in high-blood-pressure medication. Remember, I told you warfarin is frequently prescribed for patients."

  "But Lawrence wasn't taking high-blood-pressure medicine?"

  Doc shook his head. "Not according to his medical records. Only Synthroid, and occasionally something for arthritis. Other than that, nothing. Lawrence preferred his cure in a bottle, same as me. He always kept his drinking under control, though. Never let it get the upper hand."

  "So he was poisoned." I wanted to be clear on this.

  "An autopsy can't tell that, Sarah Booth. Coumadin was in his system and had been for some little time." He lit one cigarette off the butt of the other. "Lawrence wasn't the type to take medication. It was hell to make him accept his need for Synthroid. He resisted the notion that he needed to take anything, except a little port or Jim Beam, on a regular basis. Whoever did this is very clever."

  I'd given up smoking, but I felt a real craving for one of Doc's Salems. Nicotine and menthol, a bolus of bad health factors but oh, so satisfying. I bolstered my resistance and focused on the case.

  "I'll check with Coleman and see if he found a prescription for, what was it, warfarin?"

  "Coleman didn't find one."

  "How can you be so certain?"

  He cast me a sidelong look. "He didn't need a blood thinner. I autopsied him, remember. Besides, thyroid medication and Coumadin don't mix. A doctor wouldn't have prescribed it. Coleman had all the medicines from Lawrence's house. I looked through them."

  I tapped my heels against the cement ramp, beating out the rhythm to Elvis's classic "Suspicious Minds." "How would the poison be given?"

  "Small, regular doses."

  "In what?"

  "Food or drink. Same as rats."

  "This was definitely premeditated."

  "No doubt about it. It would have to be someone who had access to Lawrence's food or drink on a regular basis."

  So this was the reasoning behind Coleman's theories about Harold. If this scenario was accurate, then it would have to be someone in Zinnia. Someone who was around regularly. But Harold wasn't the only potential suspect. Brianna had been in town for a month or so. Her celebrity status had made her arrival a newspaper headline. "Beautiful Brianna Comes Home." There had even been a parade, for God's sake. And Willem had been in town for a while. Joseph Grace was within easy driving distance. In other words, it didn't have to be Harold.

  "What about the cut on Lawrence's hand. He wouldn't have died without the cut, right?" I asked.

  "He wouldn't have died Christmas Eve. The cut was the underlying cause of death at that particular time. The Coumadin, combined with the thyroid medication, was the pathology."

  "Was the cut accidental?"

  He stubbed out the cigarette and turned to face me. "This is the crux of Coleman's problem. I believe the cut was administered deliberately. It was made from a jagged shard of glass, the one in the kitchen sink. But I can't state conclusively that he didn't accidentally cut himself."

  "Then unless Coleman can prove the cut was inflicted by someone else—"

  "He has no murder case."

  "But the Coumadin—"

  "Wasn't the cause of death. The cut was. Unless Coleman can connect the cut to the murderer, the best he can hope for, if he catches the poisoner, is attempted murder."

  "Damn!"

  Doc gave me another sidelong look, this time with a smile. "Makes you want a drink, doesn't it?"

  "It does." Reaching out a hand I touched his shoulder. "I've heard that walking helps. If you ever need someone to walk with you . . ." I slapped my thigh, "I could use the exercise, as well as the company."

  Doc's hand, well manicured but showing the ravages of time and hard drinking, shook as he reached and caught my fingers in a gentle squeeze. "You sound just like your mama," he said. "Your father would have offered a paid vacation down to Briarwood Center, but your mother would have suggested a walk. I thank you, Sarah Booth. And if it comes to it, I'll call."

  I had time either to eat lunch or go home and change into a funeral dress. After my talk with Doc, I was in a rebellious mood. I decided to do neither. My pants were tight and I didn't need lunch; besides, a dress and high heels would be a liability as a photographer. My black leather boots were perfect.

  I rode through Zinnia once again, this time spotting Harold's Lexus at the bank. Wherever he'd been, he was back at work. I wondered why he wasn't at home, preparing for the reception. But then why should he? He had Brianna to serve as his hostess. Perhaps they were cooking up another murder. It was a thought born of jealousy, and instantly I knew it was wrong. It seemed impossible, but my ugly mood blackened.

  Harold. I'd given him more credit than he deserved as a male specimen. He'd fallen into Brianna's clutches without a whimper. No matter how I twisted the facts, though, I couldn't connect Harold with Lawrence's death. He wasn't a murderer.

  But someone had murdered Lawrence Ambrose, and because of a stupid loophole in the law, they might get away with it. When I passed Lillian Sparks's home, I saw her on the sidewalk, waving at me. I pulled over to the curb and let the window down.

  "Rosalyn is terribly upset," she said, her breath coming shallow and fast. "Someone's done the most horrible thing. They desecrated the grave of his beloved cat."

  I closed my eyes. "Where's Madame?" This was going to be bad. Really bad. I should have called and warned her.

  "She went to make sure the grave diggers had the right plot."

  "I'll go there now." I checked my watch. I had enough time before my appointment with Cece.

  "Who would do something so cruel?" Lillian asked.

  Who indeed. It was a guilt-laden drive to the cottage. I found Madame sitting on Lawrence's front porch, the crime tape broken and fluttering in the breeze. She wore a solid black dress with a hat and veil, an interesting effect so that her expression was somewhat hidden from me. Her posture told me the degree of her distress.

  There was no point trying to soften the blow. "I dug up the cat and took him to Dr. Matthews for an autopsy."

  She rose slowly to her feet. "You? You took Rasmus?"

  "You said yourself the cat didn't die of old age. I'm sorry, I should have called you."

  She sat down heavily. "I thought it was vandals. What did the autopsy show?"

  "I'll know tomorrow."

  "If Lawrence had only listened to me." She looked down the drive as if she saw him somewhere in the distance. "I never understood when someone said they were ready to die. Now I do."

  I was shocked. Madame was indomita
ble. She was unstoppable. In the eight years I took ballet classes from her, she'd never accepted an excuse or a whine. Quitting was anathema to her.

  "I miss him," she said, her eyes dry. "We shared so much of the past, even when he was in Paris. I went to visit him often. He made my life here bearable."

  "Lawrence wouldn't want you to give up," I said as gently as I could.

  She gave a half snort of agreement. "He would loathe the idea of me sitting out here, whining. But here I sit. He's gone and left me, Sarah Booth. He promised he would never do that."

  I took a seat in another rocker beside her. There was bourbon in the house, and both of us could use a shot, but I resisted the idea. I didn't want to fall into the private investigator stereotype by drinking at noon. I also didn't want to shake Madame's faith in me. She had enough on her plate.

  "Tell me about Moon Lake. About Hoover and the murder of Hosea Archer. Was Lawrence going to include it in his book?"

  "If he'd put in everything he said, the book would have been a five-volume set."

  "What really happened?"

  "Hosea was a little monster. A bully and quite stupid. He was killed for cheating at cards. His death isn't an issue."

  "It might be," I insisted. "His murderer was never brought to justice. If Lawrence knew the real murderer—"

  "Lawrence knew nothing. We had no interest in the secret conversations that buzzed about that casino. There were many powerful and wealthy men there during the summer. I was sixteen and I wanted to dance. Lawrence was performing. We were artists. Nothing more."

  "But Hoover was there. A man was killed right under the nose of the head of the FBI and nothing was ever done about it."

  "I don't know." Her mouth hardened. "Perhaps no one cared because they knew how horrible Hosea could be." She checked her wristwatch. "We should be going. I'm disappointed in you, Sarah Booth. You're wasting all of this time and effort on something that's unimportant. Brianna killed Lawrence. Forget the past and focus on her. If you're not willing to do that, then perhaps I should hire someone else."

  The coldness of her voice, her refusal to look at me, touched off my temper. "I haven't deposited your check. If I don't solve Lawrence's murder, I'll give it back to you." I knew it was my pride speaking, but I didn't care.