Paperwhite Narcissus (10 page)

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Authors: Cynthia Riggs

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The drive from West Tisbury to Menemsha took Botts and Victoria through thick oak and beech woods that made a canopy of interlacing branches over their heads, then through open sheep pasture bounded by rough stone walls. Beyond the pasture to their left was the great sweep of the Atlantic, a brilliant blue this afternoon.
Botts turned on the scanner he kept in his truck.
Victoria snorted. “Worse than television and cell phones. Can’t you do without that device for a half-hour?”
“We,” said Botts, looking sideways at Victoria, “are newspaper people.”
Victoria frowned and settled back in her seat.
Once they reached the center of Chilmark, which consisted of a store, a library, a school, a post office, a bank, a church, and an art gallery, they turned right at Beetlebung Corner.
“What do you expect to find on his boat?” Botts asked. “And how do you intend to justify this as an expense in connection with the obituary puzzle?”
“The deaths are related,” Victoria said.
“One death,” said Botts. “Miss Keene is recovering. And Fieldstone’s boat? The Coast Guard has undoubtedly been all over it. What can we find that they couldn’t?”
“I simply want to see it for myself,” said Victoria.
“The boat’s probably still in the water.”
“I’m sure the Coast Guard hauled it out and set it up on a cradle. That’s what they’d do.”
Botts had started down the steep winding hill that led into
the fishing village and the Coast Guard station when the scanner cut in.
“Doc Jeffers, please call in to the communications center immediately.”
“What’s that all about?” Victoria asked.
“Shhh!” Botts pulled over to the entrance to Chowder Kettle Road and turned up the volume.
A second voice came over the scanner. “Do you need EMTs or an ambulance?”
“No, we need the medical examiner to report to the hospital,” said the communications center voice.
“ME,” said Botts. “That means somebody died under unusual circumstances.”
“At the hospital?”
“Sounded like it, didn’t it?”
“Candy Keene!” Victoria gasped. “Turn around.”
Botts made a U-turn and started back up the hill. “Still on Colley’s mileage?”
“Absolutely,” said Victoria.
Botts followed North Road to the intersection with the great split tree, then drove fast enough so Victoria was uncomfortable in the swaying truck. Past the shipyard and the fuel tanks, over the bridge, up the hill to the emergency entrance. Botts parked next to a state police vehicle, an Oak Bluffs police vehicle, several pickup trucks with red lights over the cabs, and the West Tisbury police Bronco.
“Casey’s here,” said Victoria, hurt.
Botts comforted her. “You’ve been in the field. Out of touch.”
Victoria led the way through the doors of the emergency room, where a group of uniformed police officers had gathered near the desk. Casey was standing with her back to the entrance and Victoria passed by her without speaking.
“What’s going on?” Botts asked one of the officers.
“Sorry, sir,” she responded. “We can’t divulge any information at this point in time.”
Casey turned at the sound of Botts’s voice. Victoria ignored her. “Follow me,” she said to Botts. She headed down the long hall behind the emergency room, turned right into another long hall with windows and benches on either side, and turned left into a wing marked ACUTE CARE.
A tall, slender, dark-haired nurse was standing at the desk filling out forms. She turned, and her face brightened. “Aunty Vic! What are you doing here?”
Victoria introduced Botts. “William, this is my great-niece, Hope.”
They shook hands.
“William and I have come to pay another visit to Miss Keene,” Victoria said.
Hope’s face was suddenly sober. “You must not have heard.”
“Heard what?”
“She died about an hour ago.”
“But she was doing so well,” Victoria said. “I was here just this morning. What happened?”
“Come with me, Aunty Vic, where no one can hear. If you don’t mind, Mr. Botts, I need to talk to my aunt alone.” Hope led Victoria partway down the long hall outside the Acute Care wing, and they sat on one of the benches by the window.
“Well?” said Victoria.
“She was doing okay,” Hope said. “We were planning on discharging her tomorrow.” Hope looked around as if to make sure no one was listening. “To tell you the truth, Aunty Vic, that woman was a real pain in the ass, excuse my language. ‘Get me this, get me that,’ as if we were her servants and this was a high-class hotel. And she wasn’t really sick.”
“She
was
recovering from being shot, though,” said Victoria.
“
You’d
have been out two days after that shooting, Aunty Vic. She was here almost a week. Seemed like a month.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t quote me,” said Hope. “You know Mrs. Danvers, don’t you? The West Tisbury town secretary?”
“Yes, of course,” said Victoria.
“Well, Mrs. Danvers brought Miss Keene her mail and some stuff from her house she’d asked for and no one thought anything of it. Mrs. Danvers greeted Andy, the policeman guarding the door, and went right in.”
“Mrs. Danvers didn’t throttle her, did she? Or stab her?”
“No, no,” said Hope, shaking her head. “Mrs. Danvers gave her the mail and a couple of parcels from her house, one from Frederick’s of Hollywood that the UPS guy delivered, and a white pasteboard box of candy. Miss Keene apparently knew about the candy. It had come to her house before she was shot. She offered a piece to Mrs. Danvers, who refused it, said she didn’t like almond flavoring.”
“Cyanide,” said Victoria.
“Exactly,” said Hope. “I went past the door while she was picking at the candy, nibbling it. I said hi to Andy, who was gathering up his stuff to go off duty. When I went past her door less than a minute later, I saw her thrashing around.” Hope waved her hands in the air. “She’d turned a bright pink, and, excuse me, but my first reaction was to notice that she was the exact same color as that fluffy bed jacket she was wearing.”
Victoria listened intently.
Hope continued. “I rushed into the room. There was that distinctive smell of bitter almonds. She’d knocked over the box of candy and it was all over the floor. I thought of cyanide right away.”
“Cyanide acts quickly, doesn’t it?” Victoria asked. “In a matter of seconds?”
“Depends on the dosage, Aunty Vic. Cyanide makes the cells in your body unable to use oxygen, so essentially you suffocate. When I first saw Miss Keene, she was breathing really fast, and was already that awful pink color.”
“What causes the color?”
“Oxygen can’t get to the body’s cells, so it stays in the blood. That’s what causes the patient, or victim, I guess, to look flushed
like that. Almost a cherry red.” Hope glanced at her great-aunt. “But you asked how quickly it acts. A pea-sized amount will kill a big man in less than a minute. Miss Keene must have gotten a pretty good dose.”
“Is there no antidote?” Victoria asked.
“Sort of,” Hope said. “If the dosage is small enough, you may have time to administer something like amyl nitrate. But between the time I saw her eating the candy and probably less than a minute later when I went by again and saw her thrashing around, it was too late. Cyanide poisoning is pretty rare, but I’ve had courses on poisons, and when I smelled that distinctive bitter almond smell, I immediately alerted Doc Erickson, who was on call. Believe me, he came in a big hurry.”
“How horrible for you,” said Victoria.
Hope shrugged. “I’m a nurse. I’ve seen worse, Aunty Vic, believe me.”
“Now what?” Victoria asked.
“The state police are in charge, I guess. They have a detective named Horner or something who came by earlier to ask her about the shooting. She offered him a piece of her candy. Divinity fudge.”
“I take it he didn’t accept the offer.”
“No, he didn’t. Not every piece of candy was poisoned, though,” said Hope. “They’ve already run preliminary tests.”
“I suppose they’ll want to question everyone who visited her at the hospital and also find out who sent her that candy,” Victoria said.
Hope looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get back to work. It’s been wild around here this afternoon.”
“I can imagine,” said Victoria. She stood and Hope hugged her.
As they rejoined Botts, who was waiting outside Acute Care, Hope said, “You know, Aunty Vic, I’m not supposed to be telling you all this stuff.”
“I didn’t hear a word,” said Victoria.
Botts was scribbling something in his notebook. He put it in his pocket and stuck the pencil stub behind his ear. “Still working on Colley’s dime, Madam Detective?”
Victoria nodded. “I told you, the killings are connected. How long do you guess it will be before Colley gets the next obituary?”
 
Al Fox didn’t always wear his toupee. However, he was wearing it this afternoon, the day after Candy Keene’s death. It was an expensive hairpiece, one of three that he usually wore only when conferring with female clients. He never wore a hairpiece when he was sailing or skiing or playing tennis.
He was conferring with a client now, Calpurnia Jameson. Calpurnia was in his office, pacing back and forth with long strides. Each time she came to the window that overlooked Pease’s Point Way, she paused, then swiveled and paced to the opposite wall, which was covered with framed
New Yorker
cartoons having to do with lawyers. Each time she reached that leg of her pacing, she’d flick her shiny dark hair away from her face with a toss of her head.
“Where on earth did you get that hideous thing?” she asked, stopping in front of his desk long enough to read a cross-stitched motto surrounded by a border of cross stitched daisies in an enormous heavy silver frame embossed with rosebuds. “It takes up half of your desk.”
The motto read, “The first thing we do, Let’s kill all the lawyers.”
“Shakespeare,” Al Fox said. “King Henry the Sixth, part two.” He stood. “I’ll move it to where it doesn’t block your view.”
“As if I care,” Calpurnia murmured.
He lifted the framed motto and set it on an end table next to the couch. “A client made it for me.”
“Did she provide the frame, too?”
“The client was a he, and yes, he provided the frame.”
“Some taste. Twenty pounds of silver?”
“Not quite. Anyway, it’s silver plate,” said Fox.
Calpurnia continued pacing, hands in the pockets of her custom-fitted jeans.
“You wanted to see me about Colley.”
Calpurnia turned again. “I want to squeeze every last penny out of him, the self-absorbed bastard.” She swiveled. “He makes ordinary self-centeredness seem positively philanthropic.”
Al Fox nodded. “I know all about Colley Jameson.”
“He’s close-mouthed about what he’s worth.” She turned again. “What
is
he worth, by the way, Al?”
“Not much.”
“His newspaper makes a fortune.” She stopped at the window and looked out.
“As you know, he’s got four ex-wives. You’ll be number five, if you’re saying what I think you are.”
“He’s down to three exes as of yesterday.”
Al Fox said nothing.
Calpurnia paced.
Al Fox said, “You know, of course, that he doesn’t own the newspaper.”
Calpurnia stopped abruptly. “What?!”
“The
Island Enquirer
is owned by a trust.”
“What about his father’s money?”
“His father knew Colley. His widow will get a small pension. Of the remainder, one half of the trust fund goes to any issue, divided equally among them, and the other half goes to the
Enquirer
.”
“He has no children. At least, none that I know about.”
Al Fox smiled. “If it turns out there are no children, it’s quite simple. One half of the trust fund goes to his widow, the other half to the newspaper. Upon her demise, her half reverts to the
Enquirer.
Otherwise, it’s untouchable. Colley gets a small income from the fund. Period.”
“You mean, in order to get the money from the trust fund I have to stay married to him?”
Al Fox nodded. “Until his death. Or,” Al Fox looked at Calpurnia and smiled, “unless you can figure out some way to have him convicted of a crime. Almost any crime. According to the trust’s conditions, Colley, in effect, would be dead, and his children would inherit accordingly. If he has no issue, their portion goes to his spouse.”

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