Poisoned (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) (31 page)

I heard a car door slam and turned toward the street. John stood there staring at me. At first I thought he was going to yell, but then his famous smile filled up his face. He rushed up the steps and picked me up.

“Okay, so where were we?” Mary-Beth asked as she settled back down on the floor.

“I said that I have never been so happy to see another human being in all my days. I just wish he didn’t have to shoot Stuart so near my sofa. Luckily, he wore leather and it soaked up the blood pretty well.”

“Alex! We’re eating,” chided Mary-Beth, slicing large portions of cheesecake and passing them around.

“Sorry. I felt so sure Stuart was going to shoot me right then and there. My life didn’t exactly pass before my eyes, but I kept thinking about John and...” I took John’s hand. “And my sister and Henry and Kendall and Mom and Dad in London and how this was
really
going to wreck their vacation. And Meme. Meme would never recover if I had been killed.”

“So you knew it was Stuart right away?” Mary-Beth asked

“No. Not right away,” I said. “At first I thought he was a robber but he looked familiar somehow. And why it didn’t click all at once, I don’t know.” I took a bite of my cake. “There is one thing I don’t understand.”

“What’s that?” John asked.

“How would killing Bradley change anything? I mean just because Bradley was dead, that didn’t mean that Mrs. Brissart would sell the land.”

“No, it didn’t. But Bradley figured out the fact the land wasn’t theirs to sell. The land in question belongs to Kendra’s family. Stuart told Bradley to just keep his mouth shut on that first night, but that wasn’t Bradley’s way. Stuart counted on the fact that no one else knew who really owned the land and, with Bradley dead and the papers destroyed, no one would ever find out. But I think it went beyond just the money. I think Stuart really hated his brother and in a sick way, he finally felt he had a justifiable reason for getting rid of him.”

“That still doesn’t mean his grandmother would decide to sell,” I said.

“I think he figured she would eventually wear down. And ironically, Bradley’s death made her want to just be rid of the whole thing. So she probably would have sold out before too long,” John explained, “if for no other reason than to be done with her sisters once and for all.”

I sighed. “John, I hate to ask this but I have to know. Did Mrs. Brissart know Stuart killed Bradley?”

“Yes, she did. She never asked him outright, but she figured he did it.”

“Is she in trouble?”

“We’re not going to arrest her, if that’s what you mean, but she lost one grandson at the hands of another. Her life is pretty much ruined, wouldn’t you say?”

“I guess I would lie, or at least not tell anyone what I suspected, to protect my family. John, what about Steven? He’s quite a gambler as well, isn’t he? Will he be hounded for Stuart’s debts?” I asked, anxious to talk about anyone other than Mrs. Brissart.

“You got that wrong. Steven does not gamble.”

“But I saw him at my club, and Ann....”

John held up his hand. “I suggest you find yourself another source. Steven went to the club because he wanted to buy Trish a membership. She doesn’t like his country club, thinks it’s too uppity, and Steven thought maybe if she got out more, she might meet some people and have more of a life. Your club has a young crowd and he thought it would be perfect for her. She stays home and takes care of him and that’s about all she does.”

I wouldn’t give up. “Ann said a guy at the health club saw Steven several times at one of the tracks in New York.”

“Yeah, he went several times to keep an eye on Stuart. He was worried about him. Had a good idea about the kind of characters he was getting mixed up with.”

“So this murder comes downs to money.” Mary-Beth said. “Well, I hope I never have the kind of money that I get myself into so much trouble over.”

Her husband patted her hand. “I don’t think we have to worry about that, honey. Between car payments and mortgage, we’ll never have any to gamble with.”

“Stuart’s pathetic.”

“Yeah, Mary-Beth, he is that. And there’s something he didn’t know. Mrs. Brissart knew all along about the history.”

“She did? “ I asked, almost falling off the sofa.

John nodded. “She’s always known. She knew about the letters, but she never knew where they were. Bradley found them up at the house. Stuart went up there looking for them as well. I found the house ransacked when I went to Farmington.”

“There’s something that Winston said that I think fits here.”

“What’s that,” Mary-Beth asked me.

“
If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future
. I don’t know if it really fits, but I think she just wanted to let the past be the past. I can’t believe she knew and wasn’t going to say anything.”

“She’s probably more like her sisters than she wants to admit.” John took a small bite of the cheesecake. “She wanted to protect the family from scandal, but she felt giving the house and land to Bradley and Kendra as a wedding gift would make up for it.”

“If word gets out, would Kendra’s family have any claims to it?” Mary-Beth asked.

“Maybe,” John sighed, “but it’s going to take forever and a lot of money to sort it all out through the courts. I don’t know what’s going to happen now. Mrs. Brissart’s family can argue that Lucien wrote those letters because he was crazy with sorrow over the death of his friend. That he really didn’t have Raymond killed. Or that the letters are fake. Who knows?”

“How are June and May taking all of this?” I asked.

“As suspected, they’re more upset over the loss of the land than they are about Stuart and Bradley. May said something to the effect the reputation of the whole family would be ruined by the actions of their ancestor, and that Stuart had to go and inherit Lucien’s murdering ways. She also hinted at the fact that if they just kept this new information about the land to themselves, maybe the deal would still go through. Of course, it will all come out in court. And June is still pining away for J.T.” John said, as he tried to stifle a yawn.

“Has anybody seen him?”

“He went to the AIDS benefit the other night in New York City on the arm of some woman from Greenwich, I think. Has more money than all three sisters put together. In all that’s happened, I forgot to tell you that there is a bit of good news,” John said.

“There is? What?” I asked wondering how anything good could come out of all this mess.

“Kendra is pregnant. She called Mrs. Brissart from New Hampshire. Bradley’s parents are ecstatic.”

I thought back to Kendra’s upset stomach thinking that it was due to something she ate. This was much better.

John stifled another yawn and I took the hint.

“I think it’s time we left and got this guy to bed.”

We said our goodnights and I promised to call Mary-Beth in the next few weeks and let her know how everything ended. I drove home and it wasn’t until John was lying in bed that I brought up the subject of his moving in. I stood in the doorway of the bedroom with a toothbrush in one hand and a tube of toothpaste in the other. “Is this a bad time to talk?”

“No, as long as I don’t have to get up or give too many answers.”

“Just one. Now that the case is closed, can we find some time to move your things over here?”

John patted the bed beside him and I walked over and sat down, clean teeth forgotten.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said looking deep into my eyes, “I hope this won’t be too upsetting, but if it’s all right with you I really don’t think moving in together is such a good idea.”

My heart stopped. I looked at John and couldn’t decide whether to cry or get mad. I felt my face redden as embarrassment, then anger, set in. Had I read everything all wrong? Was I moving too fast for the guy? I hadn’t thought so. I thought he really wanted to live together. At least he had last week. Maybe my involvement in Bradley’s murder upset him more than I thought.

“Well, if that’s what you want, I guess we can keep things the way they are,” I said with a tremor in my voice.

“Actually, I had something else in mind. I thought that maybe we should get married.”

Elaine Macko is a transplanted New Englander living in California. From a very young age, she possessed an over-active imagination finding intrigue and mayhem in everyday situations, often with hilarious results.

In the 1980s bored with life in general, it was time to change direction. Signing up for a six-day vacation to London and Brussels in the dead of winter, Elaine found time to meet and fall in love with a local Belgian man and extended her trip to last 12 years. While living abroad Elaine became a board member of a charitable organization and taught Mexican cooking classes to the expatriate community. With a love of writing always lingering on the back burner, Elaine decided to try her hand writing a mystery and after several months, completed a draft of her first book,
Armed
, and moved on to three other books in the series.

Elaine never forgot her New England roots and centers her books in the fictional town of Indian Cove, Connecticut. Each book includes a European connection bringing together her love of both places.

An active member of Sisters in Crime, Elaine takes comfort in knowing that there are many others like her out there spending all their free time trying to come up with inventive ways to kill people.

• Title page
  
• CHAPTER ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWO
  
• CHAPTER THREE
  
• CHAPTER FOUR
  
• CHAPTER FIVE
  
• CHAPTER SIX
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER NINE
  
• CHAPTER TEN
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  
• CHAPTER FORTY
  
• CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  
• CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR