Poisoned (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) (27 page)

“Couldn’t he have just fallen?” I asked hoping with all my heart it was an accident. Indian Cove had seen enough of murder, both the real and attempted.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything in the area that could have caused such a gash on the back of his head. Mrs. Bradbury, I’d like you to tell me exactly what happened.”

“Detective, we found something if you’d like to come and take a look,” said Jim Maroni, looking more Clark Kentish than ever. We followed him to the back porch where John asked Chantal and me to wait. From our vantage point we saw what looked like a large garden stone being put into a plastic evidence bag. I caught sight of the reddish brown color on one side and turned my head.

Another police officer came into the back yard from the entrance on the side of the house and walked over to where the other men talked. After a few exchanges, John came back to the porch. “Mr. Kaminski has just regained consciousness and I’m going to the hospital. Mrs. Bradbury, please make sure Detective Maroni has a number where you can be reached. I still need to talk with you.”

“Certainly.”

“Alex, I’ll call you when I can.” With that John took off.

Chantal and I waited in the study while officers and evidence people combed the property. Finally, Detective Maroni came in and told us we could go. Chantal locked up the house giving her number to Detective Maroni. I went back to the office.

Mrs. Levitz was very animated. She also possessed above average skills in shorthand and typing and her bright attitude would certainly open the door for her—and keep it open, if I was any judge. It was Thursday morning, Halloween, and I had been interviewing the woman since early in the morning. Mrs. Levitz also possessed another, less attractive commodity—a recently retired husband who spent a good deal of his time on the golf course—when she was lucky. When she wasn’t, he spent a good deal of his time driving her crazy.

She came to Always Prepared with the intention, no, the
hope
, of finding some part-time temp work to keep her busy and give her a break from her husband’s boredom. She told me laughingly, but only just, that his newest irritating quirk was to follow her around the house when she dusted shouting “with the grain, dear, with the grain.” He was entirely too young to retire, she mentioned more than once, but had taken early retirement when the company he had worked for decided, after thirty-two years, that they needed younger blood running through their corridors.

“So your husband was in sales?” I asked with the glimmer of an idea blossoming.

“Oh, yes. He could sell bananas to the Chiquita Company, and bruised ones at that,” she boasted.

“Well, it just so happens I may be able to put your husband to work, too, Mrs. Levitz.” The woman smiled broadly as I outlined the new sales force we needed to assemble.

Promising to be in touch in the very near future, I ushered Mrs. Levitz out the door just as my next appointment arrived.

In the outer office, Millie, who had won a prize along with Rueben last Saturday night for best costume, was dressed in a subdued clown suit that consisted of a pair of baggy pants, an oversized plaid shirt, and a small dose of clown makeup. I didn’t care how subdued it was. I hated clowns. They freaked me out, actually, and I tried my damnedest not to look at Millie who kept busy testing a young man’s typing skills and administering a translation test to a woman fluent in German, Italian, and Swedish. Neither applicant seemed the least bit put out by her attire and passed their tests with flying colors. So far Always Prepared had not been called upon to supply anyone with these language skills, but you had to be prepared as our name indicated.

The second applicant I interviewed that morning did not possess as many skills as Mrs. Levitz, but I assured her we would be able to find a suitable position in no time. I thanked her for coming in and said good-bye just as the phone rang.

“Mom? Is that you? The connection’s not that good.”

“Yes, Alex. It’s me. How’s your hair?”

“Hair? My hair’s fine.”

“No, I said
how are you, dear
?”

“Oh! I’m fine, Mom. How’s London?”

“Wonderful and the weather’s herb.”

“Herb? Who’s Herb, Mom, your travel guide?”

“Not Herb,
superb
! The weather. Though rain is expected in a few days. I don’t care. I’m just thrilled to be here,” my mother shouted across transatlantic lines that were probably tangled somewhere around Greenland.

“What time is it there? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“Can’t sleep. Time change, you know.”

No, I didn’t know. I hadn’t been to Europe yet. “You’ll get acclimated in a few days,” I said, hoping it was true. I didn’t want their trip ruined.

“I just wanted to let you know we arrived safely. I’ll try to call in a few days.”

The line went dead before I had a chance to tell my mother about Mr. Kaminski, which was probably a good thing. She would just get upset and there certainly wasn’t anything she could do about it.

I needed a cup of tea but the sight of Chantal coming up the walk put all thoughts of taking a break aside.

“Hope I’m not interrupting. Did John tell you how Mr. Kaminski was doing this morning? I tried calling the hospital, but not being a family member, they wouldn’t give out any information.”

“Chantal, John did call though I haven’t seen him, and Mr. Kaminski is doing fine. They moved him to a private room and he should be allowed to go home maybe tomorrow.”

“I’m so glad.” Chantal heaved a sigh of relief. “He’s such a sweetheart. Well, that’s certainly good news.” She took off her jacket and draped it over the back of the chair in my office before continuing. “Detective Maroni came by my house last night to get the key to the house. He said they needed to do another search of the yard.”

“That’s odd. It seems like they did quite a bit of searching yesterday. I wonder what they wanted. John never mentioned anything when I spoke with him.”

The bell out front rang and, knowing that Millie was occupied, I got up to go check. A few seconds later, I walked into the office with John. He and Chantal exchanged pleasantries.

“Mrs. Bradbury, have you heard from Mrs. Brissart?”

“No, I haven’t. I’ve called Mrs. Platz’s sister’s home in Hartford several times, but never got an answer. I’m beginning to worry. They don’t have an answering machine, I’m afraid. And neither Mrs. Platz nor Mrs. Brissart has a cell phone.”

“We’ll have to keep trying. I’m sure she’d like to be here for Mr. Kaminski. In her absence, perhaps you might be able to help me with something.”

Chantal looked at me and then turned back to John. “Sure, if I can.”

“I talked with Mr. Kaminski last evening. He was quite shaken, but I think he’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure the attack was by the same person responsible for putting the cyanide into the cookies.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Reasonably sure.” John told us what had happened. “Poor Mr. Kaminski. Never knew what hit him. He just heard the crunching of leaves and then got bopped on the head.”

“So he didn’t see anything?” I asked.

“No, but he definitely heard someone approaching.”

“What was he doing out there?” Chantal asked.

“He got up early, as usual. Guess he’s a morning person. It was still dark. He made a cup of coffee and took it out on the porch and sat there drinking it and looking out over the plants. Said he heard a dog bark in the distance. The folks in the area tend to have dogs they keep inside, especially when it gets cold, so he wondered about the barking dog but didn’t pay much attention.”

I folded my arms in front of me. “How did he get hit on the back of the head?”

“He told me he sat there for about a half hour looking over the garden toward Bradley’s tree house and he started to think that maybe Bradley had some belongings up there and no one bothered to check. So he walked over to the tree and climbed a few steps. He said he could see something white. Couple pieces of paper.”

“Could he see what was on the papers?” I asked, wondering what all this had to do with cyanide and jequirity beans.

“Not up in the tree house, so he came down and walked a ways toward the house where it was lighter. He had his back towards the house holding the paper above his head trying to get the light to hit it just right.”

“Could he make out anything?”

“No, but not because he couldn’t see but because it was all in French.”

“French? Are you sure?” I asked.

“Said he remembered it from the war. Saw a lot of it then in the newspapers and stuff.”

“Then what happened?” Chantal asked.

“That’s when he heard the leaves crunch. He said something odd, though. He said he didn’t really think he had been hit all that hard but then he fell and he hit the rock and that was that.”

I looked at John. “What do you make of it?”

“I called Detective Maroni and we searched Mrs. Brissart’s house again, but to tell you the truth, I’m not sure what we’re looking for. Maybe Mr. Kaminski got it wrong and he wasn’t sure what he saw. What would papers written in French have to do with anything?” John asked.

That’s when Chantal let out a yell.

“Of course! The family history. Those papers in French were probably research that Bradley had done or maybe found,” Chantal explained.

“Did Bradley speak French?” John asked.

“A bit. He had it in high school and college. We tried speaking with each other a few times, but he was rather rusty. That happens if you don’t have a chance to use it. Doesn’t matter how long you took it, if you don’t practice, it just goes.”

“Could he read it?”

Chantal folded her hands in her lap and thought a moment. “I’m not sure, but reading is easier than speaking, at least for me. Though my French is pretty good on all levels thanks to my mother.”

“Mr. Kaminski said the papers looked like they were photocopies of something. You typed things up for Bradley, was anything in French?”

“No. Nothing. You know, now that you mention it, the Monday that Bradley came over, he said he had something he might need my help with but he wanted to work on it a bit more himself. And then he went out to the tree house. Yes, that’s right,” Chantal smiled, obviously happy to have thought of something else. “He gave me some history to type, which Alex worked on, and then he went out. I never saw him again.”

“He gave no indication as to what he needed?”

“No. None at all. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” John turned to me. “Alex, you left papers for him?”

“Yes. I left them in a folder.”

“We never found anything. Are you sure you printed them up?”

“Positive. I even wrote a note asking Bradley to review them and let me know if there were any changes.”

“I’m positive we don’t have them,” John said. “Can you tell me exactly what they were all about?”

“I have a copy.” I reached for my purse. “I found it fascinating and wanted to use it as a template for maybe doing something like this with my own family.”

John gave me a doubtful look and I figured the jig was up.

“Okay. I took a copy home because I thought maybe there was a connection. But I’ve read through it several times and I just don’t see anything that would lead to murder. It starts at the beginning of the family history. Who came over from France, how they started their business, and how the family became so prosperous. Nothing ominous in any of it if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“This is an exact copy of what you left on the desk?”

“Yes. This is what I typed up that day. All these people came here a long, long time ago, John. How could any of that matter now?”

“We’re not sure if it means anything, but Bradley got killed for some reason. You don’t poison someone by accident unless you’re a very bad cook. Whoever put the cyanide in the macaroons did it with one reason in mind.”

“You said the papers Mr. Kaminski found were photocopies,” Chantal asked. “Where are the originals?”

“Good question. We’ve gone over Bradley’s apartment and the study at Mrs. Brissart’s and we didn’t find a thing. If they’re something from a long time ago, then we’re talking about some very fragile paper.”

“I hate to mention this, and I do not believe it for one minute, but if Kendra is involved, it might be conceivable that she took the papers when she left town.” I felt guilty suggesting it, but Bradley was dead and Mr. Kaminski had come very close to the afterlife as well.

“I thought about that, Alex, but then who hit Mr. Kaminski over the head?” Chantal asked.

“Maybe she didn’t leave?”

John nodded. “Maybe.”

“Or,” I began again, “maybe Bradley left the papers over at her apartment and she didn’t even know what they were or meant. After all, she did leave before you decided Bradley was the intended victim after all.”

“Good point. Maybe I’ll have one of my men talk with her parents and find out exactly where she is.”

“Another place you might want to try is the old house in Farmington,” Chantal added. “Bradley and Kendra went out there a lot, and if it’s old papers you’re looking for, that might be a good place to start.”

“I think you’re right, Chantal. Do you know where the house is?”

“Yes. I’ve been out there with Mrs. Brissart. It’s really not that hard to find. You can ask anyone if you get lost.”

“How about a key?” John asked. “I don’t want to have to break in. Maybe June has one.”

“I doubt it. The old house doesn’t belong to the whole family, just Mrs. Brissart. But you know who has one, is Mr. Kaminski. He went out there to change the lock on the front door a few weeks ago. Bradley said that it— Oh, my God. That’s right.”

“What is it, Chantal?” I almost jumped out of my seat.

“Bradley went out to the house earlier in the month and I remember him telling Mrs. Brissart the lock on the front door was loose or something. I know he said it would be very easy for someone to get in. So don’t you see? He
was
out there. Maybe that’s when he found the papers.”