Betting on Death

by Megan Mollson

  I didn’t at first understand why he would ask such a question. We had what we needed; shouldn’t we beat a hasty retreat?

  The pawn broker’s face turned understanding. He nodded. “I’ve purchased a number of fine items from this man over the past months. He is very trustworthy.”

  I doubted his mother would agree, but I had to hand it to Will. This was good thinking. We now knew that this shop was where Melvin did his selling of his mother’s treasures. The pawn broker would likely be able to give evidence in court if it came to that.

  Will promised to consider the statue and come back later when he knew it was what his mother wanted to purchase. We tried to walk calmly out of the shop and down the street, but we were so excited that we were fairly skipping along.

  “I think we should go directly to Mrs. Finney and tell her what we’ve learned,” I announced once we were out of sight of the shop.

  “She might not want to press charges against her son,” Will hedged.

  “That’s true, but we need to be straightforward with her.”

  My partner agreed and we made our way to the Finney’s home faster than ever before. As we walked, I had the strange sensation that we were being followed. However, when I glanced over my shoulder, there was no one there. Once, I noticed a man in a shabby suit leaning against a wall, but he paid me no mind and I told myself I was being silly.

  We stood at the door to the Finney’s house, waiting for their stiff butler to answer, unable to hide our smiles. Even though our new evidence might not make much difference, we were thrilled to have chased down a lead.

  We were shown into the morning room where Lillian was sewing on an embroidery hoop. She looked up, her expression regretful. “I’m sorry to inform you that my mother-in-law has taken ill of late. She isn’t well enough to speak to you today.”

  Will and I exchanged a worried look.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I began. “Perhaps we could come back in a few days.”

  Lillian put down her embroidery hoop with a sigh. She leaned forward conspiratorially. “I’d appreciate it if you keep this to yourself, but I believe that Mother is coming to the end of her time on this earth. She’s far more ill than I would have thought possible. Even my restorative tea no longer seems to help her.”

  The excitement drained from me like air from a bicycle tire. If Mrs. Finney died, her estate would pass to her son and it wouldn’t matter one bit that he’d been selling things to a pawn shop. There would be no one to press charges against him and no jury would convict him anyway since they were now his possessions.

  Will said something polite that my brain didn’t register.

  “My own father passed away last winter,” Lillian sighed sadly. “There’s nothing worse than watching the parent who has always been so strong slowly sicken and die. My father owned a copper mine near Lake Michigan. He was always in command and barking orders. Then something went wrong and he became so very ill. I’m sorry that my dear Melvin has had to watch his own mother lose her faculties.”

  We said a few pleasantries almost automatically then excused ourselves. The pair of us walked back towards Maple House, disheartened. We’d gone to so much work to prove that Melvin and Lillian were criminals, only to be too late. Besides that, I genuinely liked Mrs. Finney. I hated the thought that she was sick and likely dying.

  There was nothing else for us to do, so I bade Will good-bye and headed home. I could sit around my own house glumly just as easily as I could at Maple House and with the added benefit of being near Cal.

  As I walked home, the feeling of being followed returned. My heart picked up its pace and I tried to surreptitiously look back when I turned corners. Again and again, though, there was no one suspicious nearby. I scolded myself. Surely this paranoia was due to my recent encounter with the thugs. It wouldn’t do for me to be jumping at shadows for the rest of my life.

  When I arrived home, I went directly to Cal’s room and was pleased to see him propped up in bed with the Register in his hands. My heart swelled. I’d wanted to avoid him that morning, but now, knowing he was in my house, I wanted nothing more than to sit for a while with the man I loved.

  The bruises on his face were purpling dramatically today and he looked worse than he had the previous night. Still, the corner of his mouth tipped up when he saw me and he laid the paper aside with careful movements that gave evidence to the pain he felt.

  “How are you today?” I asked, knowing full well that he was sure to be miserable.

  “I’ve been better,” he said with a grimace and then a rueful smile.

  I drew up a chair and told myself firmly that I would get his mind off his discomfort. It did no good to dwell on it and a distraction was surely just what he needed.

  “Is there anything interesting in today’s paper?” I asked as I settled myself.

  Cal glanced at the paper and nodded. “The Register got hold of the story of the casino raid. It says that twelve people were arrested.”

  This topic reminded me of what had happened the previous night and I swallowed hard. My eyes met Cal’s and I knew we were both thinking about the awful events that had transpired.

  “Rose, I’m so sorry…” he began.

  But I cut him off. “You have nothing to apologize for, Cal. What happened was not your fault.”

  “But I promised to keep you safe,” he sighed in frustration.

  This would not do. I couldn’t bear to have Cal blaming himself. “I suppose it was my turn to protect you. I wasn’t much help during the attack, but I was able to get you home and that has to count for something.”

  “If they’d hurt you….” His eyes were full of something fierce and protective and my heart skipped a beat.

  I reached over and put my hand on his. “They didn’t hurt me much at all. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  Cal’s thumb caressed the back of my hand for a moment before he nodded decisively and withdrew his hand from mine. “Tell me about your case. Have you made any progress?”

  I cleared my throat and forced my mind back to practical things. “Yes, we’ve made excellent progress. I’m afraid it doesn’t matter, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I explained about Mrs. Finney being suddenly ill. It was a relief to voice my frustration that all our work might be for naught. “Lillian Finney said that she lost her own father the previous winter. It’s possible that her grief has caused her to take up gambling. I didn’t think I could pity her, but now I do. What if all our work comes to nothing? We know Lillian and Melvin gamble.”

  I caught myself before I added because I saw them there. Cal didn’t seem to notice and I went on. “We know they are stealing from Mrs. Finney because the maid saw Lillian putting a statue in her bag. We know they are selling these stolen items to pawn shops because we found them. But without Mrs. Finney to press charges, it doesn’t matter. If she dies, then Melvin is simply selling things from his own estate. That isn’t a crime.”

  Cal groaned sympathetically. “How disappointing! You and Mr. Edwards have done excellent investigating. You tracked down all the necessary evidence.”

  I gave him a half-hearted smile. His affirmation and understanding were the best thing I could have received in that moment.

  “I knew Lillian’s father,” he said suddenly. “Archibald Nixon was his name. He was a big man; barrel chest, huge mustache, and loud voice. He’d made a fortune in copper mining. I’m surprised that Lillian Finney would need to be stealing anything from her mother-in-law. She must have inherited quite a bundle….”

  Cal’s voice trailed off and the one eye that wasn’t almost swollen shut grew wide.

  “What?” I asked eagerly.

  “That reminded me of something I read recently.” His eye moved quickly as though his brain was whirring, connecting pieces and testing assumptions.

  I waited, heart beginning to pick up its tempo.

  “It was a paper a police chemist in Virginia wrote about
how nitroglycerin can be used as a poison. It’s odorless, colorless, and sweet-tasting and is found in dynamite. The case this particular paper discussed involved a man who worked for the railroad who dismantled sticks of dynamite to remove the nitroglycerin bags and then poisoned his supervisor.”

  I sat back, my own mind now racing. “That’s quite a jump, Cal. Just because Lillian’s father owned a mine doesn’t mean that she is a poisoner.”

  “Of course not,” he agreed. “It just popped into my head when you mentioned the mine and Mrs. Finney’s sudden illness.”

  I chewed on my lip. “Lillian did mention that she makes her mother-in-law a restorative tea. And her own father grew suddenly ill, as well.”

  Our eyes met again, both of us catching the scent of a crime like two bloodhounds.

  “Do you think you can get your hands on that tea?” he asked.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Will and I stood not an hour later in the shadows of one of the Finney’s outbuildings and watched the house. It had taken very little explanation before Will was on his feet and eager to get moving. We waited, nerves thrumming excitedly, for Lillian to leave the house.

  My brain was a hummingbird, flitting from thought to thought. One moment I was sure that this was a fool’s errand and that we were jumping to conclusions. The next moment, I knew in my heart that Lillian was a poisoner and we would find the evidence. Then I was certain that Mrs. Finney was going to live, only to suddenly fear that she was even now dying.

  The front door opened and we watched Lillian stride confidently down the brick pavers and toward the street. I had wanted to go directly to the kitchen door and speak with the housekeeper, Mrs. Weed. Will, for once, was the voice of reason and convinced me of the merits of waiting until Lillian left the house. I’d argued that this was foolish, but he’d pointed out that if she was poisoning her mother-in-law, the last thing we wanted was to let her know we suspected her.

  He was right and I knew it. Now as we made our way to the kitchen door, I was glad I’d listened to his caution. It would have been terrible to learn that something had happened to Mrs. Finney. I know I would have spent the rest of my life wondering if my impatience had contributed to her death.

  “Miss Lunceford, Mr. Edwards, what are you doing here?” Mrs. Weed asked. She looked surprised to see us, but there was an underlying weariness around her eyes.

  “Can we trust you not to tell Lillian or Melvin about this visit?” I began, my voice low and urgent.

  “Of course,” she whispered. She glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t say a word until we get to my office.”

  We followed her down the hall and into the smaller room. Mrs. Weed shut the door and motioned for us to take the seats across from her small desk.

  “How is Mrs. Finney?” Will asked as soon as she took her own seat.

  Mrs. Weed shook her head sadly. “She’s sicker than I’ve ever seen. She can’t keep anything down and gets horribly dizzy any time she sits or stands. She’s so confused that she doesn’t know what year it is or who any of us are.”

  Will and I exchanged a look. That sounded like poison to me.

  I leaned forward and said in a hushed voice, “We have reason to believe that the tea that Lillian is giving Mrs. Finney could be poisoned. We don’t want to alert her, but we were hoping to get a sample of the leaves to take to the police for testing.”

  Mrs. Weed gasped and raised a shaky hand to her throat. “Do you think it’s too late for Mrs. Finney?”

  Will shrugged. “I don’t know. But if it is poison, you must stop letting Lillian give it to her.”

  “Do you have other tea leaves that look similar that you could exchange for those?” I asked. “We don’t want to draw her suspicion.”

  The housekeeper nodded. “Yes, of course. Give me a few minutes. I’ll make a packet of the leaves for you and then wash the tin and replace it with harmless leaves.”

  Will and I agreed and watched her hurry away. It was entirely possible that our guess was wrong. The tea might be harmless. Lillian might not be poisoning her mother-in-law. Of course, she might be poisoning her some other way. However, if there was poison, it was being administered only to Mrs. Finney. The tea seemed like the most logical agent.

  Only a few minutes later, Mrs. Weed returned, handed us a paper packet, which Will slipped into his pocket, and we left after promising to let the housekeeper know anything that we learned. Then we hurried away before Lillian could return and spot us leaving her house.

  Neither Will nor I had much to say as we made our way to the police station. There were too many possibilities of what might happen to waste time speculating. Nor could we get our minds onto any other topic of conversation. If Lillian was poisoning her mother-in-law, Mrs. Finney was in mortal peril. If the leaves were tainted with nitroglycerin, we would have found a poisoner. But if the leaves bore no traces… If, if, if…

  I spoke with Sergeant Geary at the desk and explained the situation. I’d had run-ins with this man before. He had immediately assumed that I was little more than the daughter of the chief of police and had dismissed my concerns in the past. It had taken a few interactions before he’d begun to change his tune. My face must have carried some sort of expression that demanded he take me seriously, because the desk sergeant merely took the packet and handed it off to his assistant with strict orders to take it to the police chemist immediately.

  “Now, Miss Lunceford, it might take a day or two before he can get to it,” Mr. Geary warned. “He’s got his hands full with some samples we took from the casino.”

  I thanked the sergeant and we made our way back to the street. My thoughts buzzed like bees in a jar, banging into the edge of my awareness. Some idea was trying to take shape, but it was too ephemeral.

  Finally, I drew to a stop and put a hand on Will’s arm.

  “Wait,” I said slowly.

  My partner drew to a stop and looked back at me expectantly.

  “What is it?” He squinted at me in the brightness of the fall day.

  “There are too many coincidences,” I replied vaguely, thoughts churning.

  Will stepped closer to me, crossed his arms, and hunched over so the difference in our height wasn’t so great. “Which coincidences do you mean?”

  I closed my eyes and began to list them. “Lillian and Melvin were involved in gambling, so was Hugh Meriwether. Mrs. Finney was poisoned, so was Meriwether.” My eyes popped open and I snapped my fingers. “Small objects were taken from the Finney’s house and small objects were taken from Meriwether’s.”

  Will whistled under his breath and lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck as he considered this news. “Do you think that Lillian had something to do with Meriwether’s death?”

  Did I think that? I bit my lower lip as the bees in my brain buzzed even more frantically.

  “If she was desperate enough to kill her mother-in-law, it isn’t hard to believe that she might have killed a bookie to get out of debt,” I said slowly.

  “She might have killed her own father to get at her inheritance,” Will speculated.

  My eyebrows shot up. I hadn’t considered that. “Do you think we should go to Meriwether’s house and try to find something that might contain poison?” I wanted Will to say yes, but knew that it might be a long shot.

  “He hasn’t lived there for a while now. It’s entirely possible that everything edible has been removed by the new tenants,” Will said, pointing out the obvious flaw. “Still, it can’t hurt to ask.” His eyes lit up with the spark that only a good clue could ignite.

  We weren’t far from the innocuous neighborhood from which Meriwether had been residing. As we strode purposefully down the walk, I noticed that the houses around his were neat and attractive. Clearly, the people who lived here were on the right side of the law, paid their taxes, and lived quiet lives. I could understand why Meriwether wanted to live in such a place. For one thing, he could attract a better, wealthier clientele if he operated fro
m a home in a nicer part of town. It was likely, too, that he liked to appear every bit as law abiding as his neighbors were.

  His house bore tidy white clapboard and perky red shutters. As I pulled the bell, I couldn’t help but compare this house to the camouflage that certain poisonous plants wore in the jungle.

  A middle-aged woman wearing an apron and the unmistakable signs of being a maid opened the door. Will explained that we were working with the police and had some questions for her. She blinked at us mildly before stepping back and allowing us in. We trailed her as she slunk towards the kitchen and then sat in the wooden chairs she indicated once we arrived.

  “Did you work for Mr. Meriwether?” I inquired hopefully. Everything would be much easier if she had or knew the maid who had worked here before her.

  She nodded heavily and I wondered if she might be a bit slow or if she was just very tired.

  “What is your name?” Will asked with a flirtatious smile.

  “Dorothy,” she said with a grunt, oblivious to his charms.

  “Dorothy,” I began, “did you clear out all the cupboards after Mr. Meriwether’s death? Or are some of the foodstuffs still here?”

  She shook her head. Will and I exchanged a look. I was beginning to wonder if Dorothy would prove to be much help after all.

  “The new tenants had you throw out all of the old food?” Will tried to clarify.

  “No, they didn’t say nothing about the food.” Dorothy scratched her nose.

  My heart leapt. “Would you mind if we looked through the cupboards?”

  “Don’t take nothing,” the maid warned dully.

  I threw Will a look and moved quickly to the nearest cupboard. He began to question Dorothy about how long she’d been in service. Her replies were short and never instigated a conversation, but my partner had a seemingly never-ending list of things to ask her.

  In the meantime, I pawed through the contents of each cupboard. Most held dishes or cook pots, however I did find a tall, narrow pantry of sorts. It was in the back of the top shelf that I pulled out an elegant tin that didn’t quite belong. I knew it was out of place because my grandmother liked this brand of tea leaves. It was very expensive and could only be purchased in more metropolitan cities than Brinkman. Next to the unremarkable containers and tins of ordinary spices and ingredients, it stood out like a peacock among pigeons.