by Kieran York
“Good. I hate to begin my term with too many legal entanglements. Handle it with finesse for all of us.”
Royce sprinted back to the office and presented the stay. She took her gun from forensics and holstered it. She carefully pinned her badge to her shirt. She lifted her radio and dispatched a deputy, telling him to call back reporting his find immediately.
After pouring a cup of coffee, Royce sat and again plotted out each bit of theory with each piece of evidence. For nearly two hours she waited. Then the call came in confirming her suspicion. “One more affirmation. Yes,” she muttered to her quiet office.
She phoned Hertha. She asked that Hertha call Jorie and tell her to wait outside the courthouse in about an hour. And to have her camera team.
Royce slipped a circle of butterscotch between her lips. She stood, wiped her badge to a sheen with her shirt cuff, and took a very deep breath. Then she called for backup.
There was so much on the line, she couldn’t even consider blowing it.
***
Royce heard muted laughter behind the huge decorative doors. The Family Morals Coalition victory party had started. But it would soon be ended. Royce glanced over at Nick. He carried the office’s tape recorder. With his free hand, he again rang the elegantly chiming doorbell of the imposing McDermott home.
“Tyler,” Royce greeted the young actor.
“Who is it, Tyler?“ Elizabeth McDermott asked as she came into view. “Sheriff Madison. Are you here to give your concession speech?”
Royce lifted her head. “No. The polls haven’t closed yet, and my term isn’t completed. I’ve been temporarily reinstated. I’m here on official business. Could I speak with you both in private?“ she asked.
“This isn’t a good time.”
“We’ve got to talk with you, and I prefer that it be in private,” Royce insisted.
“We’re having a party. Can’t this wait?“ Elizabeth’s voice was indignant. She led Tyler, Nick, and Royce into the study. When they were seated, she accused, “You’re coming here now to harass us because you know you’ve lost the election.”
“No.” Royce nodded to Nick. “I’ve come here to make an arrest for the murder of Sandra Holt and Judge Jakob McDermott.”
“Tyler had nothing to do with it, and if you dare bring charges ...” Elizabeth sputtered.
“We aren’t here to arrest Tyler. I’m placing you under arrest for the murders. Nick, would you Mirandize her?”
Shock blanched their faces. Elizabeth spat, “You don’t need to read me my rights. I know the law.”
“If you know the law, you know that it’s required we Mirandize you. We’ll be making a tape recording of this interrogation. Your statements will be turned over to the D.A. and used in a court of law.” The recorder was clicked on.
While Nick read the rights, Tyler argued, “Are you crazy? My mother wouldn’t have killed anyone.” He rose to his feet and demanded, “What evidence could you have?”
“Sit down, Tyler,” Royce ordered. “With the laws of discovery, every shred of evidence will be at your mother’s disposal, so I’ll be glad to cover it with you now.” Royce knew that she would need to take Elizabeth apart a stitch at a time if she were to get a confession. With total confidence, she would need to prod and extract the truth. “I assure you both, this case will be convictable. Do you waive your rights to an attorney?”
“I have no need for an attorney. I haven’t committed any crime.” Elizabeth’s eyes seemed controlled; her speech was defiant.
“You pride yourself on being methodical, so I’ll present the evidence to you in a methodical way. We’ll begin with the murder of Sandra Holt.” Both Royce and Elizabeth braced for one another’s words.
“Why would I have killed her? I barely knew her.”
“She was blackmailing someone. We all thought it might be your cousin, Jorie. But she was blackmailing you. You made a sizable withdrawal the day you met with her. Before the press party. You delivered the money to her. During the party, you saw the woman’s lack of control when she drank. You decided you would need to deal with her differently. She needed to be silenced permanently.”
“This is insane!“ Elizabeth blustered. “Marjorie was found standing over her with the murder weapon in her hand.”
“In her right hand. Sandra Holt had been struck on her right temple. It would have been extremely awkward for Jorie to swing the poker with her left hand and accurately strike Miss Holt with the force needed to kill her. But I noticed that you’re left handed. And you’re the only left-handed suspect.”
“That certainly isn’t conclusive proof. She’d written L-O with her blood,” Tyler argued.
“Yes,” Royce agreed. “It looked as though it would have been an O, when, in fact, she was attempting to write an I. For Liz. That is what she called you?“ Royce questioned Elizabeth.
“I suppose so.”
“And she never referred to Jorie by her last name. But she did call you Liz. Others weren’t allowed that privilege. Nor could they have spoken to you the way she did. She told you, commanded you, to pull the judge’s leash. When I recalled hearing that, I figured you allowed those things so that she would write favorably about Tyler. But there was more to it than that.”
“The letter written in blood was definitely a circle,” Tyler declared.
“I tried writing the same letters, in the same position that the deceased woman was found. My demonstration concluded that she was at the outer perimeter of her reach. The semicircle was a natural final motion as she died. The scrawl just happened to look as though she might have wanted to write an O.”
“This is all speculation, I’m not hearing any more,” Elizabeth ranted.
“I think you will. There’s much more.” Royce’s voice was strong with an assurance. “There was an empty envelope on her desk. It only had her own prints on it. For the same reason the poker only had Jorie’s prints on it, the envelope didn’t have your prints. You were wearing gloves. But you did take the money. Why would Sandra have an empty envelope there? People normally discard empty envelopes. And weeks later, the money you had withdrawn was returned to your account.”
“This is all outrageous!“ she spewed. “It’s nonsense. Why would I have killed her? And more shocking is your accusation that I murdered my own husband.”
“He had seen you exiting Sandra Holt’s room. He gave contradicting statements. He had to have lied for a reason.”
“My father sometimes got confused,” Tyler defended. His glance was jumpy, and his rich voice quivered. “That wasn’t unusual.”
“He realized he needed to cover. Another thing, he probably also realized. Elizabeth, your gloves had been taken off after the murder was committed. I have photographs taken before the murder. And after. That would have been inconspicuous to most, but a husband would have noticed. It’s reasonable to assume that you took the gloves off because they had been splattered with blood.”
“That’s absurd. Your assumptions are just that. Assumptive.”
“The gloves were color-coordinated with a hat, dress, and shoes. Not the kind of set an orderly woman like you would break up. Do you have the gloves? Could you get them for us now?”
“I wouldn’t know where they might be.”
“You disposed of them, Elizabeth. You can’t provide them to us now, and you know it. Because they were splattered with blood. They have been burned, or destroyed in some other way. But that triggered Judge McDermott’s suspicion. He began wondering if you were implicated. That’s why he tried to persuade Jorie to confess. He didn’t want murder too close to home.”
“He wanted her to confess for her own good.”
“As well as yours. What astounds me most is that you were willing to allow your cousin to take the fall for your crime. But the first crime was credited to circumstance. You devised the second. It must have all seemed predestined. The judge was wanting answers, and Jorie was already being accused of one murder. The proposed party in C
rystal was the right opportunity for murder. You’ve often stated that your chief fault is in being a perfectionist. So you began to plot the perfect murder. A meticulous effort. And it very nearly worked.”
“This is a monstrous allegation!“ Elizabeth hurled her venom. “And even if you win the election, I’ll see to it that the Family Morals Coalition has a recall.”
Royce refused to allow her to jump tracks. “You devised a plan to murder your husband with methodical precision. One time you mentioned that if you didn’t have a recipe for something, you went to the library. You needed a recipe to kill. I have in evidence two books that you checked out days before the judge was murdered. They are both reference books on the properties of poison. We have your prints on file from the ones provided because you were on the murder scene. My bet is that there will be a multitude of prints on the strychnine pages. You wanted to get the precise dosage for death. Administering a lethal dosage was of importance. You didn’t want to be lumbered with an invalid. A man you didn’t even love. So there was no margin for error.”
“But Jorie had the packet of poison,” Tyler refuted. “And the availability and access.”
“Your mother made a trip to her dude ranch days before the party. I sent a deputy there, and he found a box of uncut strychnine. That is also being checked for prints and will be sent to our forensic lab. I’m betting the results will come back a match. As well as the prints. But there wouldn’t be prints on the packet that your mother slipped into Jorie’s jacket when she greeted her. She was wearing gloves.”
“What about the timing?“ Elizabeth stammered. Her eyes batted rapidly. “My husband didn’t die until half an hour after he’d arrived at the party.”
“Your plan was ingenious. But technology is also plenty ingenious. You knew the judge’s habits. He would take a drink along with him in his favorite stein. You once told me that you never mixed drinks for the judge. We’re attempting to locate your housekeeper to see if you mixed him one the day he died.”
“She hates me. She’ll tell you anything to incriminate me.” Elizabeth fidgeted with her hair. “That still doesn’t show why he didn’t die until after we’d been at the party for half an hour.”
“There’s where luck came in. You hoped that Jorie would keep the same ice and just pour in the contents of her special drink. You wanted the Longhorn Kick ingredients to be blamed for the murder. The judge drank bourbon. The ingredients of Jorie’s drink include bourbon. But not vodka. You read the same information on strychnine’s properties as I did. It can be administered in small quantities, and alcohol is an excellent solvent. I questioned Jorie about the ice being cloudy immediately. I erroneously rejected the 'ice' theory at first. But there would be a way. Mix the poison in the vodka. Freeze a portion of the ice. Before totally freezing, the interior bubble of water in the ice could be removed with something. Maybe a hot hypodermic syringe needle inserted and the water withdrawn. Then replaced with the poisoned vodka. You’ve filled puffed pastry, and it’s the same concept. You would then put the ice back into the freezer, and no one would ever be able to tell the difference.”
“How do you plan on proving an idiotic theory like that?”
“Science. I’ve spoken with a toxicologist and pathologist. The toxicity is out of whack. Between the tissue samples and the trace samples from the carpet, something was amiss. The strength of poison in the carpet was different as the ice continued to melt. And to clinch it, traces of vodka showed up in their testing.”
“None of this is conclusive,” Tyler charged. “Why would my mother kill them?”
“I think you know. Deep down, you know,” Royce offered. “Mrs. McDermott, tell your son why you murdered Sandra Holt. We know she was blackmailing you. We know why.”
“Mother?”
“It was a lie,” Elizabeth screamed. “The vile woman would have printed a lie about you. I had to kill her. I followed her back to her room. She told me that the money I’d given her was only a down payment. She had photos of you with another man. She showed them to me and said she had the negatives. Her bluff didn’t work. I could read in her eyes that she had only the prints.”
“Mother, you killed her? And my father too?”
Elizabeth’s face paled and her eyes closed. “He was on to it. He knew. He would have wanted a reason. He was never a real father. He was contemptuous of you. He ridiculed your gentleness. He was too busy playing politics. Too busy trying to be a man. I was his backbone. I propped him up. His manly act of opening the door was as good as it got. He was a weakling.”
“What are you saying?“ Tyler blurted. “You did hate him?”
“Of course I hated him. He was a worse husband than father. He wanted a young, beautiful wife. I was devoted. I stayed with him. He always had to have the attention. I had to laugh at his pathetic jokes. When I tried to read, he would tap his fingers. When I tried to listen to music, he would hum or whistle. Always he had to be the center of attention. He required constant attention.” She inhaled quickly and deeply. “I had prepared for the role of his bereaved widow with years of pretending to be his loving and devoted wife. It was all pretend. You see, Tyler, your acting ability comes quite naturally to you. You’ve inherited much of your talent from me.”
“Why didn’t you leave him?“ Tyler asked with disbelief.
“The perfect marriage drama.” Her head tipped up. “Oh yes, everything was respectable.”
“How can you believe murder is respectable?“ Tyler questioned with rhetorical disdain. “You could have left him.”
“No,” she paused. “When we lived in Denver, we had just moved into a new home. A prairie dog entered the garage and was couldn’t get out. I opened the garage doors and shooed it out. With its freedom, I thought it would run. It didn’t. In half an hour it was back, scratching to reenter its prison. Leaving your father was impossible for me. I couldn’t endure the lack of respectability afforded a divorced woman. And the judge never would have understood about the lies that Holt woman was telling.”
“They weren’t lies. Two people have been murdered because of my secret. Mother, children aren’t seedlings you plant in the ground and then weed out. You don’t have a choice to pick hair color, eye color, or sexual orientation.”
“Tyler, you aren’t really that way? No.” Elizabeth broke. Tears formed quickly and she blinked them back. “You have only been satanically misled a time or two. But I believe in you.”
“Mother, I’m everything you despise. Look into my face. It’s everything you and your Coalition hate. I don’t need your belief. I don’t want your belief. The dark secret is about to be revealed. The veil is about to be lifted. For all of us.” Tyler looked over at Royce. “I’ve always hated secrets,” he mulled. “Particularly my own.” Tyler went to his mother and his arm looped her shoulder. “Come on, Mother. It’s all over.”
Royce stood. “Nick, we’ll take her into custody now. Radio that we’re bringing in the murderer of Sandra Holt and Judge Jakob McDermott.”
She snapped off the recorder. She then ejected the cassette tape and carefully placed it in her breast pocket.
***
Royce had arrived at the Bell Ringer late. Throughout the afternoon, she worked on completing the reports and she had given an exclusive interview to correspondent Marjorie Lovett. The murder had been solved and a full confession given. There was no jubilation; but there was justice, Royce had stated privately to Jorie.
“Sorry I’m late,” Royce said as she sat next to Hertha. Smoky leaped up and waited for Royce to greet her with an ear tickle. “Hey, Smoky,” she spoke, “you been waiting for me too?”
“Laramie wants to buy you a drink,” Hertha replied.
As the beer was set in front of her, Royce lifted it in thanks to Laramie. She was aware that he had always bought her father a celebration drink when he would win each election. Royce looked back at Hertha. “I think this is one time I’d like to thank Laramie with words.”
She neared La
ramie and their glasses clanked. “Good work, kid.”
“Thank you, Laramie.”
“You’ve taken care of me plenty. Just returning the favor.”
“I know it’s more than that.”
“You know?”
“My job is investigation. People speculate about your past. We were wrong.”
“My pa didn’t like the way I was turnin’ out. Never did approve of my ways. Told me if I didn’t settle down, he was cutting me out of my inheritance. Well, a fella like me don’t go for that malarkey. I told him I’d never spend a dime of his money. Never did. I turned and walked out of that board room and never went back. Even though I’m the last remaining heir, I never called in a favor. Until now. Small price for them executive fellas to pay. I’m outta their hair. And they don’t trouble me none. I’m free. They ain’t.”
“I appreciate what you did on my behalf.”
“Didn’t figure you’d find out.”
“I remember you told me your name once.”
“Now, I’m askin’ one thing of you. Forget that name. I have.”
Royce nodded. “It’s forgotten.”
Royce returned to Hertha’s side.
Hertha smiled. “Was Laramie giving you a congratulatory speech?“ she joked. “I’ve never seen him talk that much.”
“No. I just thanked him for his vote. He responded.”
“And it brought up memories? Memories of your father’s election days?”
“It brought up memories,” Royce repeated. She looked back at Laramie. He was living life exactly as he wanted. Royce turned and spotted Gwen and Nadine entering. “Here’s my campaign manager and her house spouse.”
Gwen gave Royce a hug. “We’ve been looking for you. Just saw Jorie. She was about to leave for New York. On assignment. You did it, Royce. Busted the case.”
Nadine added, “And now we await the election results. Molly was so nervous she drove out to Gran’s cabin to watch the news. Said they would drive in later and put on a victory feast at the Pantry.”