Beacon Street Mourning (28 page)

Once we did get to talking it was hard to leave aside socializing, for here I had found a woman much like myself— even though she had not quite the same degree of education and our parents had not moved in the same circle, which accounted for why we had not met before. Martha had trained and worked as a nurse because she wished to make a contribution to society and to be self-supporting. She cared not a whit for ostentation. And she continued to do nursing on a private basis, when the opportunity came along, not because she required the money to survive—living as modestly as she did, the rental of her house provided her sufficient income—but because she felt the work in itself was valuable and rewarding.

I told her about Michael's and my detective business in San Francisco; this was an aspect of me she'd known nothing about. In the days she'd worked at nursing Father, Martha had seen me only as the daughter of a prominent man in one of those Beacon Street houses that of themselves tend to set up certain expectations. But now, knowing more about me, she too felt our sisterhood, as it were, under the skin.

"But you did not come here to talk about these things we unexpectedly find we have in common, I think," Martha said.

"No," I acknowledged regretfully, "I did not, but I'm still glad that we've had this opportunity to become acquainted. And I hope, when this business at hand is resolved, we can be friends."

"Well, then"—Martha sat up straighter and folded her hands on top of the table—"let us get the business at hand over with, by all means. How may I be of help? On the telephone you said this concerned your father. You are aware, of course, that I only nursed him for those few weeks I came to your house on Beacon Street."

"Yes, I am." I looked into her eyes, which were a light hazel brown with streaks of green shot through them, both warm and lively. Except for the unusual eyes, her face was actually rather plain. I said, "Martha, may I take you into my complete confidence?"

"Yes, of course you may, Fremont."

I wriggled in my chair, feeling a touch of that anxiety I'd felt earlier in the afternoon. "It would be easy to misunderstand what I'm about to tell you, but somehow I think you will not misunderstand."

"I'll try my best."

"Very well. I have come to believe that my father's final illness, which came over him gradually through a course of about
two years, was not from natural causes. I believe he was being poisoned, and I suspect his wife, Augusta, of being the poisoner."

Martha raised her eyebrows but said nothing, merely waited for me to go on.

"In part I believe this because Father did improve once he was put into the hospital—but he wouldn't have been put into the hospital if I had not contacted someone at the bank where he used to work and insisted that something be done for him. I was, I guess one could say, stuck in California at the time."

"Yes, you must have suffered some fairly recent trauma. I've observed the slight hitch in your gait, even when you're using the cane."

I smiled. "You're very observant. I had both legs broken, and a head injury, but that is another story. To return to Father: While in the hospital he did improve, but only to a certain point. Dr. Cosgrove still expected him to die, and so sent him home because that is supposed to be the best place for it." I paused, for emphasis, then continued:

"At this point, Martha, please make a mental note of the fact that Augusta always came to visit Father in the hospital at the time of the evening meal."

"Noted." She gave a sharp nod.

"Now, I was not in favor of bringing my father home to Beacon Street. I feared we would only be putting him back in Augusta's clutches, though of course I could not say so. Therefore, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked Dr. Cosgrove to provide private nursing care for him at home. That was when he hired you and Sarah Kirk."

"A wise decision." Martha nodded again.

"You began looking after Father in the daytime; Sarah Kirk at night. You were both most assiduous in your duties and did not leave him alone for any appreciable length of time, including at meals. Under your constant care Father made a dramatic
improvement. I know, for instance, that he had not a single hallucination after we brought him home, though he still had them sometimes in the hospital. In your care his appetite returned and his color improved, as anyone could see. I began to think Father might survive after all."

"That's so. I said the same to Dr. Cosgrove, that I thought perhaps we had been mistaken as to Mr. Jones's illness having reached the terminal stage."

"What did Dr. Cosgrove say?"

Martha blushed a bit. "He said nurses are not diagnosticians, and I should keep to my place."

"That sounds like him."

"That sounds like most doctors, but once in a while one will surprise me. Not every single doctor considers the nurse his personal servant."

"Do tell," I said dryly. "Now, Martha, I have no proof of any of this, which is why everything I say must remain confidential. Without proof, which believe me I am trying to gather, there is nothing I can do. However, reasoning from the facts as I have presented them thus far, this is what I believe. First, that Augusta was poisoning Father with some agent—I regret to say I do not know what—that for a long time only weakened him and made him less able to function as vigorously as he previously had done."

Martha nodded but did not interrupt.

"Then gradually she increased the dosage, or perhaps the illness progressed on its own; either way he became more and more dependent on her. He lost his former zest for life. He was not able to go out socially anymore. Eventually he had to stop working. Slowly Augusta isolated Father until finally he was at home alone with her all the time. I believe that is what she most wanted, that he should be entirely dependent upon her until, at last, he would die. The problem was, Father had a strong heart. He kept on living and finally I was able to intervene."

"A strong heart," Martha mused, "yet he died of a heart attack, or heart failure. Cardiac arrest. That was what Sarah Kirk told me over the telephone when she called to say that I should not come in, because your father had just expired."

"What time was it when Sarah called, do you remember?" This was a key fact, which I'd wanted to get from Martha, and she was giving it to me without my having to ask.

"It was early. About seven o'clock, I should think. I was awake but not really up yet. As you've seen, your house on Beacon was for me an easy walk so I could afford to lie in for a little."

I shook my head. "Father could not have 'just expired' at seven A.M. I found his body myself at shortly after three. But wait, this is getting the sequence of events mixed up. Let me go back."

Martha nodded. "Don't worry, I'm following you just fine."

"My theory is that Father improved so dramatically because with you and Sarah in constant attendance, Augusta could no longer administer the poisoning agent on a regular basis. She must have gotten a little frantic—she couldn't have him getting well, or even just well enough to keep on living as a semi-invalid, not if people were going to be coming to the house and his daughter getting married, possibly staying in Boston—"

"Oh, are you doing all that? Excuse the interruption, I could not resist."

"Well, yes, I am marrying my business partner, but where we will live after the marriage has not been settled yet."

"I do hope you will be here so that we may continue our acquaintance, but please go on."

"There is not much more to say. I do not know how she did it, but I think Augusta also administered the final dose of poison and made it look as if Father had died of a heart attack."

"Hmm," Martha said. She got up from the table where we both sat in her cheerful kitchen with its yellow walls and white-painted cabinets, refilled the kettle, and set it on again to boil.

"There's a problem with some of that, but I think I can help," she said.

"Precisely why I'm here."

"Your father's long illness was characterized by gastrointestinal symptoms. The delusions or hallucinations can come on when the body is sufficiently malnourished. Likewise his liver had begun to fail—but the liver is a remarkable organ and can regenerate itself. Apparently your father's liver failure was fairly recent and not too far advanced. That would be why his color improved rapidly once Sarah and I began to look after him. This is strong support for your poisoning theory, Fremont. The liver processes toxins out of the body; once that toxin or poison was no longer administered, working his liver too hard day after day after day, the organ began to make a recovery."

Now it was my turn to nod.

"I must say, though, your father's cardiac arrest cannot have been caused by the same poison. It had to have been a different one. The poisons that could cause a heart to stop are all so toxic that even given in small amounts, his death would come within days if not hours."

"You've confirmed something I suspected, but really I know nothing about poisons. My partner, Michael, was going to look into it but right now he is occupied with another matter. From your own expertise, Martha, have you any idea what poisons may have been used, and how Augusta could have obtained them?"

The teakettle, which had been rumbling on the burner, then seized by a brief silence, now erupted into a whistle. Martha took advantage of the subsequent teapot-filling interval to think silently. As she brought the teapot back to the table she shook her head.

"I really can't say. You should have asked for an autopsy, that's the only way to tell, and even then it isn't always possible."

"I tried," I said, twisting my lips into a bitter approximation of my feelings on that score. "But Augusta was Father's legal next of kin, only she had the right to ask for an autopsy. Searles Cosgrove informed me of this fact when I went to ask his help. He was no help at all, by the way. In fact, he rather surprised me, because at our first meeting some weeks earlier, his attitude had been considerably different. Or so I'd thought."

"Hmm," Martha said. She poured tea, a third cup for each of us, then slowly stirred sugar into hers. "Well, I can give you a little information but I'm not sure how much good it will do. Incidentally, if I haven't said so before, I think you are right to be concerned and thinking along these lines. I was very surprised by your father's sudden death. In fact, his whole illness did not follow any predictable path I've ever seen before."

"Thank you. Any help you can give me at all will be much appreciated."

"All right. About the poisons: the ones that could cause an illness of long duration are not that hard to obtain, because they're in things most people have around the house. Such as rat poison and many different kinds of cleaning agents."

"Cleaning fluid?" I perked up, recalling the bottle I'd found in Augusta's room.

"Certainly. Much harder to obtain would be whatever caused your father to die suddenly. There are several poisons that mimic heart attack, but in their natural state—I mean things like plants, the leaves and berries and mushrooms and such—they're not strong enough to kill quickly or reliably. For that your poisoner would almost have to have the substance in refined form. Which suggests it was obtained from a druggist or a chemist. Not everyone could do that."

Our eyes met.

"In other words, Augusta had an accomplice," I said.

"You think it may have been Searles Cosgrove?" Martha asked.

"He's one possibility."

"If you would trust my discretion, I may be able to find out some more about Dr. Cosgrove's behavior in recent weeks by talking to Anna Bates," Martha offered. "I have a feeling she would welcome someone to confide in about now."

"Oh?"

"Um-hm. Shall I try?"

"Yes, please," I agreed.

"All right, I will. Now if I do that for you, perhaps you will tell me something in return, and in advance: What does all of this have to do with something I read in the
Boston Sunday Globe
this morning, about Augusta Simmons Jones having been fatally shot?"

MARTHA HENDERSON'S QUESTION, which was a straightforward and simple one, brought me up short. The reply I gave was woefully inadequate:

I said only, "I'm not sure."

While that was the truth, of course it didn't satisfy her. Nor had I expected it to; what she really wanted from me was a fuller, personalized account of what I knew about the murder, and so I told her.

Even then, I knew it wasn't enough. I didn't really know the answer to her question, because I hadn't thought about it. I hadn't
wanted
to think about it. As long as the police didn't suspect me of shooting her, I didn't
care
who'd killed Augusta Simmons Jones—that was the awful truth. I tried to explain this to Martha in a way that didn't make me sound like a completely horrible person.

"My problem is," I said, "I know from experience that I cannot concentrate on more than one investigation at a time. If there's a connection, I'll come across it. Meanwhile I have to find out if Augusta really did poison Father, and if she had an accomplice, who that person was."