Poisoned (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) (18 page)

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously. Why wait?”

“Probably just an act of desperation. The killer never thought about murder before, but as time goes by, realizes it’s a hopeless cause trying to rationalize with Mrs. Brissart and has had enough and voila! Brings a bit of poison to the party,” Mary-Beth said.

“But if June wanted to kill her over this Charles thing, why all the waiting?” I asked.

“You don’t forget your one true love,” Meme said wistfully. “I loved my James ’til the day he died, even if he did cheat and we were separated for all those years. If June loved this man like that and her sister pried him away, she wouldn’t forget. Believe me.”

“Meme, if you loved Grandpa so much why didn’t you go after the other women he went with?” I asked.

“He always came back. Even when we got separated, he came over every night for dinner and, well, we always had a thing for each other in the bedroom.” Meme gave her little cackle again and we all smiled. “That man was hot!”

“Mrs. Redmond, why didn’t you ever just divorce after all those years?” Millie asked.

“Getting separated was just a formality. I wanted to show him I meant business with all his cattin’ around. But divorce? No. He was Irish Catholic and I’m Italian Catholic. Besides, I loved him and he loved me. He couldn’t help himself.”

“Maybe something new surfaced with regard to Charles or maybe there’s something about him in the history,” Mary-Beth said getting back to June and Charles.

“No. The history stopped when Mrs. Brissart and her sisters were born,” I said pensively.

“Going back to Mrs. Brissart as the main suspect, how about if Bradley found out something truly disturbing about his grandmother?” Sam suggested in between bites of carrot and maneuvering the car. “Then that would support John’s theory of her being the killer.”

“Okay, not that I want to entertain the theory Mrs. Brissart could harm a fly let alone kill someone, I’ll play along,” I conceded. “It would have to be something horrific for a grandmother to kill a grandson. I’m not sure there could be anything that bad. And if it was that bad, wouldn’t it have been brought to light well before this? You can’t keep certain things secret forever.”

“What does John say about the history?” Sam asked.

“Nothing to me. And I somehow neglected to tell him I had a copy.”

“You little devil,” Mary-Beth chuckled from the back. “So the way I understand it is this, if the grandmother did it, the family history must fit in somewhere or else why would she kill her own grandson? And if the family history has nothing whatsoever to do with Bradley’s murder, then Mrs. Brissart must have been the intended victim all along.”

“Which,” Millie said, “seems to open up a lot more slots for suspects.”

“How so?” Sam asked.

“The only reason we can think of for Bradley being killed is his work on the family tree. If Mrs. Brissart was the one the killer was aiming for, well then, we have the whole family after her, don’t we?”

“True, Millie, but if the poison was meant for Bradley, and the history is the motive, we have all the same suspects,” I corrected. “I haven’t spoken with everyone yet, but I assume most knew about his interest in the history. Any one of those goofy relatives might have good cause not to have something revealed by Bradley’s searching. Though they all seem very forthcoming and proud of their background.”

Millie sighed. “Yeah, I see. I guess you’re right. So the suspects remain the same no matter who the victim should have been because if Bradley found out something terrible, none of them would want it known.”

“Seems that way to me,” I said.

“Unless,” Sam added, “Bradley was killed by his girlfriend. She would have no reason to kill his grandmother.”

“That’s right!” Mary-Beth leaned on the back of my seat. “So there might be a few different things going on here that we haven’t thought about. Jeez, Alex, I don’t envy you. You have your work cut out.”

“I guess I do,” I said contemplating this last bit of information.

The minivan continued on its journey north to the towns of West Cornwall and the covered bridge over the Housatonic, on up to Falls Village. We drove a little while longer, through an area crisscrossed with stone fences made when farmers cleared the earth for farming, before finding a roadside park and settled in for our picnic.

Everyone grabbed something from the back of the van and brought it to an area not far from the river. I grabbed a chair from the back of the van and brought it out for Meme, and then the rest of us each took a corner of the blanket and started to pass the food around.

“Getting back to the subject of murder,” Mary-Beth said when we settled down, “I think the discovery of two poisons is very interesting.”

“How so?” Millie asked.

“Well, it lends itself to all sorts of possibilities, doesn’t it?” explained Mary-Beth. “I personally think it indicates two people plotting murder rather than one. Though separately, not together. Which is a bit mystifying.” She leaned back on her elbows and crossed her legs at the ankle. “One person would have to be awfully devious to think up two different poisons.”

Millie shook her head. “What better way to throw the investigation off than to cast suspicion on another party with the introduction of a totally different substance.”

“Well, someone is certainly partial to poison. Boy, I sure am glad I moved out of Indian Cove years ago.” Mary-Beth shook her head and sat back up and took another bite of her ham and cheese sandwich.

“I’m a little intrigued by your theory, Sam, of Kendra killing Bradley. I never considered her myself,” I said.

“Lovers’ quarrel,” Sam said.

“But this looks like a premeditated murder. Could she stay mad long enough to find just the right moment to poison his food?” I asked.

“Maybe she just couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“Then why not just break up?” Millie asked.

“Maybe she wanted Bradley’s money,” Mary-Beth said, “but they weren’t married yet. If she did kill him, she should have waited until after the ceremony.”

“I can’t think of murder anymore with all this good food around. This pasta salad is great, Millie. Sam, try this.” I passed a forkful to my sister.

“Oh, I will, just as soon as I’m done with my potato salad.”

A ski lift, lodge, and several skiers could fit on the mound of potato salad Sam attempted to consume. And no doubt would.

“Enough about murder! What good stuff do you have to tell us?” I eyed Mary-Beth gold ball earrings firmly placed in her lobes just like always, dark hair cut short in a sort of updated Dorothy Hamill look, and rich brown eyes always bursting with mischief.

“I second the motion,” Meme said from her chair where she sat with a baseball cap firmly placed over the little veil hat, and a pair of sunglasses resting on her nose. “No more murder.”

“Why do you always think I have some gossip to spread?”

“Well, do you?” I asked.

“It just so happens that I heard something interesting.” Mary-Beth leaned back on her elbows again tilting her face up to the sun. She closed her round, doe-shaped eyes. “Now let me just think a minute what I told you the last time.”

“It’s been almost a year ago since you enlightened me with something tantalizing.”

“Has it been that long?” Mary-Beth asked. “Right, I told you about how Jane and Mike broke up. And you know, this is all very apropos with the murder of Bradley Brissart.”

“How so?” I questioned my friend with more than a bit of skepticism.

“Well, Mike used to mow Mrs. Brissart’s garden one summer way back when, when that gardener of hers broke his leg.”

“Mr. Kaminski,” I said.

“Who? Oh, yes. The gardener.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Alex, he did. Trust me. So, you see, it’s all connected.”

“Uh-huh,” I gave Mary-Beth a half smile. “Continue.”

“I ended my story last time with the breakup of Jane and Mike. Well, now he’s married to Cathy Lyon.”

“Who’s Cathy Lyon?” Millie asked as she stretched out on the blanket to soak up some of the afternoon sunshine.

“Okay, let me give a little background for those of you not lucky enough to have heard this last year. Alex and I went to school with a real nerdy girl named Cathy Lyon, and she ended up marrying the cutest guy in the whole school, Mike McGill, after his first wife caught them in bed together.”

“Sounds a lot like Esther going after Fred,” Meme said.

“Viagra Fred?” Sam asked.

“Generic Fred. Shhh, you two. Let Mary-Beth talk,” I chided my sister and grandmother.

“Actually, Mike cheated with many others before Cathy. He’d been doing it since the week he and Jane got married.”

“The week? What kind of a guy is this?” Millie shielded her eyes from the bright sun with one hand.

“Not a very nice one. Now let me continue. He cheated with a couple of women on his honeymoon in Hawaii. His wife stepped on a sand shark or something equally disgusting and was confined to her bed. Being a nice person, stupid, but nice, she told him to go out and have a good time. Well, he certainly did.”

“Cathy Lyon was in Hawaii at the same time?”

“No, Samantha, she comes later.” I looked at my sister and gave her the shut-up-and-listen-and-you-might-learn-something look.

“As I was saying,” Mary-Beth directed her gaze purposely at Sam, “all this happened on their honeymoon, but afterward things got better. They bought a really nice house and Mike worked as a corporate lawyer. Jane amused herself with charity work, tennis at the club, and classes at the community college. Particularly a pottery class.

“So one day she comes home from class to find Cathy in bed with Mike. The same bed Jane and Mike shared. She threw her pottery project at him and got a divorce. Cathy and Mike got married after his stitches came out.”

“That’s where you ended last year. You mean more’s happened?” My eyebrows came together in disbelief. “Do tell.”

A cool breeze sailed through the tops of the trees and sent a bouquet of color gently to earth. Mary-Beth picked up one of the leaves and continued with her story.

“Yes, Alex. The plot thickens. Things went well for Cathy and Mike for a while. Then he started going away more and more on company trips to other branch offices in other states. Only there weren’t any other branch offices.”

“So he’s up to his same tricks,” said Millie.

“Yes, but this time in reverse.”

“Reverse?” I asked.

“Instead of cheating on Jane with Cathy, he’s now cheating on Cathy with Jane.”

“Oh, my God! What a sleaze bag. Alex, hand me that bag of chips.”

I took a handful of chips and then tossed the bag of to Sam.

“Didn’t his company wonder where he was?” Millie asked.

“No, he never actually went anywhere except to Jane’s house, where, I might add, he kept a whole other wardrobe. So off he goes to work every morning from Jane’s and no one’s the wiser.”

“Dateline should do a story on this guy,” Meme said as she took a sip of coffee from a thermos.

“So did he get caught?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. Turns out Cathy got pregnant. She and Mike were very happy. For a while it looked like maybe he might actually settle down and be a good father and husband. But then Jane calls about six weeks later and says she’s pregnant. Actually, I think they got pregnant within days of each other because the two little darlings where born at the same time in the same hospital.”

“Did they know beforehand the other one was pregnant?” Sam asked, leaning back, finally stuffed to the gills with picnic goodies.

“No. But they ended up in the same room and of course Cathy knew Jane hadn’t remarried. Then Mike comes walking in to see Cathy. Well, they both throw their arms out to him and then they look at each other and they both start crying and screaming at the same time.”

“What a mess. Those poor women.”

“Yes, Millie. It was not the happy event it should have been. The nurses had to separate them and put them at different ends of the maternity ward. I hear it was really quite funny watching these two women trying to pull each other’s hair out what with their protruding bellies.”

Meme cackled. “I would have liked to see that.”

“They didn’t manage to make much contact except in the stomach area,” Mary-Beth continued. “And you’ve got to remember they were in labor, so with them in pain to begin with, and trying to kill one another, well, you can just image the screaming. Mike ran from one frazzled, screaming woman to the other. The babies, two girls the spitting image of their father, were born within an hour of each other.”

“So, who did he end up with? But wait just a minute. I want to get my sweater out of the van.” I got up and went and got my sweater along with Millie’s jacket, Sam’s sweatshirt, a small blanket for Meme, and the cheesecake Mary-Beth had made. “Okay, go ahead.”

“Neither one. Cathy divorced him as soon as she got out of the hospital, and Jane doesn’t want anything else to do with him ever again. So they took him for all he’s worth and now he lives at home with his widowed father.”

“What about Jane and Cathy?” Sam asked, as she ate a piece of the cake savoring the cherry topping.

“They’re doing great. They’ve both enrolled in Mommy and Me classes together, and the little girls are growing up together just like the sisters they are. They’re even thinking about moving in together to save costs. After all, they both got great big houses in the settlements.”

“Jeez! And I think I have problems when I can’t get my kids to brush their teeth before they go to bed,” Sam said.

“So what does this have to do with the murder?” Millie asked, looking as if she had missed something.

“Nothing. I just mentioned that Mike used to cut Mrs. Brissart’s lawn. He may have to again,” Mary-Beth added.

We talked for a bit more over the heavenly concoction Mary-Beth made and then gathered everything up for the trip back to Indian Cove.

There wasn’t one morsel of food left.

When I woke Sunday leaves covered my yard. So much for the nice little pile I raked together late yesterday afternoon. From the look of things, a blustering wind sometime during the night ran rampant. I loved the look of the leaves and only raked them because all my neighbors did.