by Ann Mullen
“Get to the point,” Gabe said.
“I was at the grocery store one day,” Daisy said in between her sniffles, “and I overheard these two hippie girls talking. Well, maybe they weren’t hippies. I don’t think they’re called that anymore.”
“Daisy…”
“Okay,” Daisy said. “Anyway, these two girls were talking about eating mushrooms. They said they went out and got them from under cow pies.”
I laughed when she said that.
“They said they were tripping. I got the impression that these mushrooms must have some hallucinatory effect. So I went out and gathered up some and cooked them for Pat. I wanted her to act stoned. That way, the girls would think she was on drugs and she’d never get elected—and then the spot would be mine. I know it was selfish of me. I wasn’t thinking straight. But the mushrooms didn’t make her act weird or anything.”
“The medical examiner declared her death as accidental. She died from E. coli bacteria from eating raw hamburger. They found it in her stomach contents,” I said. “Your mushrooms didn’t kill her.”
“But I thought they did,” Daisy said. “I actually felt euphoric at the idea that I could get away with what I did. Then reality set in and I realized it was wrong of me. After I thought about it for a while, I felt sick to my stomach. How could I do something so horrible? God will never forgive me. I will never forgive myself.”
“What you did wasn’t very nice, but the point is that you didn’t intend to kill her,” Billy said. “Fortunately, she didn’t die because of your antics. I hope you learned a lesson.”
“Oh, I did,” Daisy said. “If I get out of this mess, I’ll never pull a stunt like that again. And I’m sorry I came to your house in a fit. I was so angry when I found out that Minnie killed my brother. I wanted to confront her, but on the drive over, I kept asking myself why my brother would break into her house. Then I realized that Minnie had been my friend and was only protecting herself. My brother was the one at fault. I know that now.”
“What about Alice and Harriett? What do you know about their deaths? And where’s June Robinson? She’s missing. Why did your brother come after us? Who shot Jonathan?”
“I don’t have an answer for you. All I can say is that I didn’t kill anyone.”
“You keep saying that, but all the roads lead to your doorstep. You admit to serving mushrooms to Pat, thinking they were going to make her go wild. If you would do that, then why would you stop short of murder?”
“Because I’m not a killer.”
The room was silent for a minute.
I thought about what she said and it seemed to make sense. Daisy was capable of misbehaving, but I no longer thought she was actually capable of murder.
“Let’s take this one step at a time,” I said. “Where were you when Jonathan was shot?”
“Who is Jonathan?”
“Oh, don’t try to play me for a fool, Daisy. You know who he is.”
“No, I don’t. Who is Jonathan?”
Billy and I looked at each other.
“Are you saying you didn’t know that Jonathan is my brother?” he asked her.
“Oh, my! No, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. Is he okay?”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
She looked back and forth at us. “I swear that I didn’t shoot your brother. I’ve never fired a gun until last night, and that was by accident.”
“Where were you on August the twenty-seventh?”
She looked at Gabe and then back to us. “We were in Smithfield that day. It was our grandson’s birthday. We stayed overnight and came home the next day. You can call my daughter and ask her.”
“What kind of gun do you own, Gabe?”
“I have—had a .38 Smith and Wesson. The cops have it now. Oh, and I have a shotgun.”
“I guess that’s easy enough to check.” I looked at Billy. “We can access…”
“We can verify that,” Billy interrupted me. He gave me another one of his looks.
“An eyewitness said she saw you run Alice Atkins off the road. She recognized your car.”
“I can assure you that if I ran Alice off the road with my car, there would be damage to it. My car is in fine shape.”
“That’s not quite true,” Gabe said. “I noticed a dent in the front bumper and your right headlight is cracked. I meant to ask you about that.” He stepped back and gave her an odd look.
“Gabe, I haven’t driven that car since we got back from Smithfield. The only time it’s been out of the garage is when I drove it to their house last night. Remember, we’ve been driving your car because you said mine needed an oil change.”
“That’s right,” Gabe replied. “I meant to change the oil, but haven’t had time.”
Daisy creased her eyebrows and then looked out the window. When she looked back at us, she had a look of shock on her face.
“I spent a couple of days looking for my car keys. I thought I was losing my mind, until Gabe finally found them in the ignition of my car. With the keys in the ignition, anyone could’ve driven my car while we were gone.”
The expression on her face was a dead giveaway. She was telling the truth. Now we needed to find out where she was at the time of the other deaths.
“Harriett Shifflett died from arsenic poisoning. At first the M.E. thought she might’ve died from a blow to the head, but during the autopsy he discovered a lethal dose of arsenic in her system. She lay unconscious for so long, it gave the poison enough time to do its job. She died on Saturday, the tenth of September.”
“We flew to New York that weekend,” Gabe said. “We went to a Ground Zero prayer at my sister’s house. My oldest brother died when the towers came down.”
“It was so sad to remember, but we just can’t forget,” Daisy added.
“That’s right,” Gabe said. “We have to keep the memory alive and never forget that terrorism isn’t just a problem for other countries; it’s a real threat for America. The United States has to remember...” His voice trailed off, but his pain was still there and very much real.
The tide was beginning to turn. The emotion in the voices of two people who had suffered so much was proof enough for me. There was no way a person would lie about something so tragic. Daisy had an alibi for the night Jonathan was shot and for the day Harriett died, and she swore she left her keys in the car—which made it possible for someone to take her car in her absence. The only one left to be accounted for was June Robinson—who disappeared and has yet to be found.
“June Robinson hasn’t been seen for several days.”
“So I heard. She’s a strange person,” Daisy said. “Don’t get me wrong, I like her, but she’s always out on her balcony looking at me through those binoculars. I told her it bothered me, but she said she was just looking at the scenery. I let it pass. She’s been so lonely since her husband passed away. Now if anybody would see anything out of the ordinary, she would be the one. She always…”
“She’s the eyewitness who said she saw you run Alice off the road.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“It’s true,” Billy said, supporting my accusation.
“That can’t be true,” Daisy surmised. “She might have seen my car run Alice off the road, but it wasn’t me who was doing the driving. That’s probably where the damage to my car came from. It was a setup. Someone used my car to kill poor Alice. Alice and I had become friends.”
“Alice thought you killed her friend, Pat. That’s why she joined your silly club. She was trying to dig up evidence on you. She said Pat no longer trusted you. Pat told Alice that you had turned on her. She said you were out for blood.”
“No!”
“Yes!” I said, loudly. “She was certain you killed Pat and she wanted to see you behind bars. She was talking to Billy on the phone when she was run off the road.”
“Jesse’s telling the truth,” Billy said. “Alice pretended to be your friend, but she wasn’t. She told me that you
were a killer and she was determined to prove it. That’s why she hired me.”
“I can’t believe it!” Daisy said. “I thought she was my friend. I don’t know who to trust anymore.”
“She wanted me to see to it that Pat’s death didn’t go unpunished,” Billy said. “Unfortunately, she died before she had a chance to get her answers. If she had lived, she would’ve found out for sure that Pat wasn’t murdered.”
Daisy began to cry again. “Why do people do this to me? I can’t trust anyone. Now I realize the only friend I have is Gabe.”
“That’s not true, Daisy,” I said, reluctantly. “My mom is your friend. She thinks you’re innocent… at least, she does now.”
“I am innocent and I can prove it! I have an alibi! I told you where I was when those women died.”
“You haven’t told us where you were at the time of June Robinson’s disappearance.”
“When did she go missing?”
“Three days ago.”
She looked at Gabe and then back to us. “That would’ve been Tuesday.” She smiled and seemed to relax a bit. “Gabe and I took a drive on the Skyline Drive that day, didn’t we, Gabe? We were gone all day long. We went on the drive and then on the way home we went to Ruckersville and had dinner at the Blue Ridge Café. We both just love that restaurant.”
“We most certainly did!” He looked at Daisy and then bent down and kissed her forehead. He looked back at us. “I still have the ticket from the drive. They give you a brochure with your ticket and I put it in the glove box when we left the drive. And we paid for our dinner at the restaurant with a credit card. So I guess that covers everything. Now you can stop harassing my wife and let the police do their job. You can leave now. Your job here is finished.”
Billy and I were about to leave when my cell phone rang.
“You have to turn that thing off,” a nurse said as she walked into the room. “We don’t allow them in the hospital, so please turn it off now! It’s the rule!”
She was so persistent, I turned the phone off, but not before I had a chance to look at Caller ID. The call was coming from our house.
Chapter 20
Billy and I turned to leave and as we walked out of the room, Gabe came up behind us and followed us out into the corridor. He obviously had more to say before we left.
“I know you’re only doing what you were hired to do, but I can assure you that you’re wasting your time on Daisy. She didn’t kill anyone. She’s not capable of hurting a soul. She freaks out at the sight of a dead animal in the road. She can’t even watch those crime scene shows on television. It almost makes her sick to her stomach. When she saw her brother hanging from a ceiling beam it almost destroyed her. She spent two months in the psychiatric ward. She was catatonic the first three weeks. When Pat died, I thought for sure she was going to relapse, but she didn’t. When her brother was killed, she had to be heavily sedated. She’ll be on anti-depressants for a long time. I worry about her well-being. So much has happened to her in the last few months.”
“I just find it odd that members of her little club are dying off left and right,” I said. “Don’t you find it strange?”
“I sure do. It worries me that she might be the next victim. Have you considered the possibility that someone other than Daisy is the killer? I know you think she’s guilty, but she isn’t. Perhaps you should turn your attention elsewhere. Go find the real killer. Please, for everyone’s sake.”
“Alice hired us to prove that Daisy killed her friend. She was so certain,” Billy said. “Now Alice is dead and we’re hunting for her killer. You say someone else drove your wife’s car that day. Whoever drove that car is most likely responsible for the other deaths. All we need to do is find a link.”
“We know that Pat’s death was accidental, but Alice and Harriett’s deaths weren’t. And now, June Robinson, a key witness is missing. Is it possible that whoever is responsible has something to do with Kansas breaking into my mother’s house?”
“What does one have to do with the other?” Gabe asked.
“I don’t know, but I get this feeling there’s a connection. If Daisy is innocent then someone is trying to frame her.”
“Daisy admitted to her little fiasco with the mushrooms,” Billy said. “Did she tell anyone about her stunt?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Gabe replied. “She was embarrassed at even harboring those kinds of thoughts. She just got around to telling me about it. Needless to say, I was shocked. I know people can be led astray by power, and believe me, Daisy said she felt a power she’d never experienced. She was overwhelmed by this feeling. But when it came right down to it, the feeling didn’t last and a serial killer was not born.”
“It could’ve easily happened,” I added. “Power is addictive. It consumes you and can make a person do something they wouldn’t normally do.”
Billy was taking all this in and from the look on his face, I could tell that he no longer thought Daisy was the killer either. I think I lost any notion of that probability when that gun of hers kept talking to me.
“If she told one of her friends about her antics, maybe her confession planted a seed,” Billy suggested. “That’s been known to happen. Copycat killers spring up everyday. Your wife may have given someone else the idea.”
“Is there any one particular member of the club who might be a clinger?” I asked.
“What do you mean a clinger?”
“Does Daisy have a friend who seems to be by her side all the time when they’re together? Like someone who changes the way she dresses and acts, so that she can be more like Daisy?”
Gabe crossed his arms and put his hand to his face as if he was deep in thought. His eyebrows formed a crease.
“A certain type of woman, especially one who is lonely, may form an attachment to another and then start to mimic her newfound friend’s behavior and appearances,” I continued. “It doesn’t take long after the friendship begins for the one who is trying to be like the other to get frustrated and do something irrational.”
“Like what?” Gabe asked with concern in his voice.
“When she learns that no matter what she does, she can’t be exactly like the person she’s infatuated with, she might become irritated. That irritation might turn into hostility and hostility then turns into rage. In the end, she will use that rage on the one person she most wanted to be like in the first place.”
“I bet that could be dangerous.”
“You can bet on it. I think they call it misplaced infatuation or something like that. It’s been a long time since I took psychology. However, I found the course quite interesting. It’s amazing what goes on in the human mind. Trying to interpret personalities is baffling. I’m really fascinated at what makes a person turn into a serial killer.”
Billy looked at me as if I had gone off in a tangent.
I had. All the things I thought Daisy had done were now tossed out the window. This left me confused. If Daisy is innocent, then who’s guilty?
“There is this one woman in the group,” Gabe said. “Her name is Irene Moss. I tell you, this woman is a real character. There aren’t many people I can’t get along with, but she’s different. From the very beginning, she treated me as if I was in her way. Every time I’d walk into the room, she’d say something to make me feel as if I were intruding. She wanted me to know that this was their night and I wasn’t invited. She made that perfectly clear. Her resentment of me was obvious. She didn’t want me around. When those silly women met at my house, I tried to make myself scarce, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped. One time I had to go to the kitchen to get my keys, and Irene got real upset. She gave me an evil look and when I left she told Daisy that she thought it was rude of me to interrupt their meeting.”
“What did Daisy say about that?”
“She told Irene to cool it. They were supposed to have fun, not get together and whine.”
“I bet she didn’t like that.”
“No, sh
e didn’t. She got angry and left. She didn’t come to another meeting for two months. Finally, Daisy had to call and apologize.”
“Why did she have to apologize?”
“She didn’t want to hurt Irene’s feelings. She thought Irene was being silly about the whole thing, but decided to give in and try to make amends. That’s the kind of woman Daisy is. She’ll say she’s sorry when she’s not in the wrong if that’s what it takes to avoid a rift and mend a friendship. She doesn’t like confrontations or arguments. Daisy likes things simple and easygoing.”
“We’re going to work up a list of all the women in the group,” Billy said. “I would appreciate it if you’d help us compile that list. We’ll need names, addresses and phone numbers. A brief bio would help—just to give us some personal insight on each woman.”
“Of course,” Gabe said. “I’ll get on it as soon as I can.”
“Gabe!” Daisy called from inside the room. “Aren’t you finished? I need you.”
“I’m coming,” he called back to her. “I’d better get back in there before Daisy blows her stack. When I get home tonight I’ll get that list together for you. Do you have a fax machine?”
“Yes,” Billy said as he reached into his back pocket and withdrew his wallet. He retrieved one of his business cards and handed it to Gabe. “My home fax number is right here.” He pointed to a spot on the card. “You can reach me at one of these numbers pretty much anytime of the day or night.”
As we turned and began to walk in the direction of the elevator, Gabe joined us and continued to talk.
“Thanks,” Gabe said. “I’m glad you’ve come over to our side. We need all the help we can get. The police have hounded us so much I’m about ready to explode. With all that’s happened I don’t know how much more Daisy can take. She’s not a spring chicken anymore. I don’t know how things are going to turn out with her foot. She might need more surgery. I just hope she’s not going to be disabled. That would drive her insane.”