Poisoned (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) (9 page)

“Do you work, Stuart? I know your brother worked for, what? A shipping firm?”

“What a funny question. Doesn’t everyone work?” he asked. “Okay, maybe not everyone, at least in my family, but yes, surprise, surprise, I do actually have a job. I’ve gone to law school. Does that surprise you?”

“It’s just that no one mentioned it,” I offered, feeling somewhat ashamed by my bad assumption.

“Probably because I never passed the bar. I took it a few times, but now I just work as a researcher for a law firm. The pay’s okay, and it’s just four days per week. Gives me time for other pleasures.” At my quizzical expression, Stuart explained, “I like the ponies. I’m sure someone must have mentioned that to you. Probably in a sentence with other words like
no good
, and
lazy
.”

“Stuart, look…I’ve got to go. Tell my aunt I’ll talk to her soon.”

Steven Estenfelder stood at my end of the sofa. I got a good whiff of his heavenly cologne. He smiled at me before turning to leave.

Stuart excused himself and left with Steven.

I took my teacup and headed to the other side of the room where Trish sat alone. She looked delighted to have company.

“You own a temp agency,” Trish began. “Maybe I’ll come down and see you.”

I felt like telling her to first buy a longer skirt and a bra, but despite the young woman’s appearance she seemed warm and friendly, and a bit lost and at odds.

“Do you have experience working in an office?”

“Well no, not exactly. You see, I just got divorced and I’m kind of at loose ends. You know? So I thought maybe I could get a job.”

“Have you ever had one?” Again, not a very tactful question but Trish didn’t seem to notice.

“No. Actually, I’ve never done much of anything.” Trish looked dejected. “I finished high school and then I went to a junior college for two years, but that’s about it.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I said brightly, hoping to boost the young woman’s spirits. “Do you have computer experience?”

“Some. I use the Internet a lot. I can type but I’m not very good with the different software programs.”

“Maybe you can start off by taking some computer classes at the community college. They have a very good selection of administrative courses.”

“Yeah, you think so? Sure, why not.” Trish brightened. “I’m getting a bit tired of playing hostess at Daddy’s dinner parties and just sitting around the house all day.”

A knock sounded at the front door, and before I could jump up to answer it, Mrs. Platz came down the hall. “Good morning, Detectives. Come in.”

John and Jim walked into the living room and looked all around.

“Alex, do you know where Mrs. Brissart is?” John asked.

“Yes, she’s in the study with her son.” I excused myself from Trish and stepped away from the group to join John. “Is something wrong? You look kind of odd.”

“Detective Van der Burg, Detective Maroni. Good morning.”

No one had heard Mrs. Brissart come down the hall.

“Mrs. Brissart, is there somewhere we can talk in private?”

“Yes, certainly. Come into the study. If it’s about Bradley, then I think Kenneth and Lillian should hear. Alex, you come as well.”

We walked toward the study and a sense of dread washed over me. I tried to read John’s face and felt certain he had figured out who killed Bradley Brissart.

If Detective Maroni thought it odd that Mrs. Brissart asked me to join them, he didn’t say anything, and neither did John, to my great relief.

Mrs. Brissart took my arm again and looked up at me. “I wish this was all over. I’m afraid it’s wearing on me.”

After everyone took a seat, John told them what he found out from the lab. “We’ve tested all the food along with the liquor in the cabinet.”

“Do you know what killed our son?” asked a soft-spoken Lillian Brissart.

“Yes, Mrs. Brissart, we do. As assumed, we found cyanide in several of the macaroons.”

Roberta Brissart gave a small gasp. Her son took her hand.

“That’s what killed him,” Kenneth whispered.

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid that it did. It’s a quick-acting poison. Cyanide poisoning results in something called anoxia, meaning it causes a complete lack of oxygen in the brain and all the other tissues of the body. If it’s not immediately reversed, then death occurs rather quickly. I’m sorry.”

Roberta looked up with moist eyes. “You mean Bradley perhaps could have been saved if he got immediate attention?”

“Well, Mrs. Brissart, with a doctor present with an ampoule of amyl nitrite and the knowledge of what to do, perhaps. The killer knew that no help would be immediately available,” John said.

“Detective, wouldn’t Bradley taste the cyanide and spit it out?” asked Lillian.

“Unfortunately the killer planned it well. The cyanide, being in the macaroons, would go undetected, at least at first. It sometimes tastes like almonds though probably not as much as people think, and if I understand correctly from the lab, the macaroons are made with…” John consulted his notes and pointed to a spot on the paper. “Almond extract.”

“I put extra almonds in them, just the way Bradley liked!” Roberta slapped her tiny hands down on the arms of the chair causing me to jump. “Why did I make those cookies? If only....”

“Mother, please. Don’t do this to yourself. You made them because Bradley loved them,” Kenneth said as tears sprang to his own eyes. “Detective Van der Burg, where on earth would someone get cyanide?”

John gave a disgusted shrug. “I’m sorry to say, anywhere, if you know what you’re doing. Or if you have friends in the wrong places.” I thought about the Tylenol murders again and the Jonestown massacre and their group suicide. “There’s a bit more,” John continued.

“More? No, please. I don’t think I can take any more,” Lillian said, as she walked to her husband’s side and took hold of his other hand. Her gray slacks hung on her body; the cream cardigan failed to conceal her sagging shoulders. Splotches covered her face from all her crying and her light brown hair, though nicely styled, hung limply to her shoulders. I guessed that Lillian, a woman who most probably always dressed immaculately, hadn’t slept or eaten for the past two days.

Kenneth looked from his mother to his wife. “What else is there?”

“We also found poison in the Cherry Heering liquor,” John said.

“Dear God! Someone certainly wanted me dead,” cried Roberta.

“Well, there’s something puzzling about the poison in the Cherry Heering. It’s something called a jequirity bean. Someone shoved the mashed pulp of the bean into the bottle. It looked very amateurish. Chances are you would see the stuff floating in the bottle before you drank it.”

“Jequirity bean, what the hell is that?” Kenneth asked wiping his eyes with a lace handkerchief his wife handed him.

John looked across the room at Jim. “Detective, could you explain for us?”

Detective Maroni looked a little unsure of himself. He approached the small gathering and took out his notes. “From what the lab tells me, it comes off a vine that grows in tropical areas like Florida and the Caribbean. It is used for ground cover. The beans, which are bright red with a bit of black, are used in crafts and jewelry items. It’s an ideal poison in that the symptoms aren’t apparent for a while, so it’s a bit difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of the vomiting and diarrhea. And eventual death, if you eat enough.”

He took a deep breath and continued in his soft-spoken, courteous manner. “A few days after ingestion, you develop these symptoms and gastroenteritis, and probably just think of the flu. From the looks of it, about twenty or so beans got mixed up in the liquor. The lab guys aren’t sure what would constitute a lethal dose, but probably twenty beans would do it.”

“Where would someone get these beans, Detective?” asked a horrified Lillian.

“I’m sorry to say they’re rather common. As Detective Maroni said, they’re used in jewelry because of their bright colors. If you couldn’t find any yourself, well, there are people out there willing to sell anything and show you how to use it for a price. The same as the cyanide. There are even books that give step-by-step instructions for poisoning your victim.”

I gave a shudder at such thoughts. It must be like drugs. If you want it, you can find it.

Lillian looked back to John. “What does this mean, Detective? The killer used two poisons. I don’t understand.”

“I’m afraid neither do the police. Right now, we don’t know if we’re looking at one killer with two poisons or two killers or…well, I just don’t know what we’re looking at.” John shook his head in total bewilderment. “Someone wiped the Cherry Heering bottle clean of any fingerprints.”

“There’s something I don’t understand. If there was poison in the cookies, why didn’t someone else get sick or die?” I asked.

“A good question. About seven cookies remained. Three had small amounts of cyanide, though enough to kill someone. It only takes one.”

“Why wasn’t there cyanide in all of them?” asked Roberta.

“We don’t know. Maybe the killer didn’t have time to taint all the cookies. We’re assuming whoever did this came here at some point during the evening with the rest of you or came in after everyone left and took a chance when no one was looking.”

“So you’re saying only a random selection of macaroons was tainted and, well, at the risk of sounding insensitive, it was the luck of the draw?” asked Kenneth Brissart, sounding angrier by the second.

“It seems that way, though I would imagine the killer knew eventually all the cookies would be eaten.”

“So the intention was to kill everyone on Monday night,” Lillian said, as her skin became paler than it had been a few minutes earlier.

“I don’t know,” John admitted. “I feel as if I keep saying that, and I’m sorry. We
will
find out.”

“I think,” I spoke up, “it must have been random. There’s no way the killer could have known exactly who would eat what cookie and when.”

“But I thought the police said my mother was the intended victim,” Kenneth asked. “Isn’t that what you told her yesterday?”

“Yes, we did,” Detective Maroni said, “but several cookies would have to be tainted unless the killer just handed her one.”

“One theory is that the killer poisoned the cookies as everyone left,” John added.

“Everyone left at the same time except Bradley and Kendra,” Roberta managed to say through her tears. “Everyone moved about gathering their things. Who would notice anything? Even Bradley walked out for some fresh air. My niece, Marsha, she smokes, and it gets stuffy in here by the end of the evening. I never put an ashtray out for her, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. She just uses my good china.”

“So the killer thinks everyone is going and poisons the cookies,” said Kenneth in a voice verging on a yell, “believing Mother would be the only one home.”

His wife shook her head and looked down at her hands.

“They put a bit of stuff, that jeq...bean, in my Cherry Heering just to be sure.” Mrs. Brissart started to cry again. This time I rushed to her side and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.

“Mrs. Brissart, do you have a drink on a regular basis?” Detective Maroni hesitated for a moment. “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out the way I meant.”

“It’s all right, Detective Maroni. I understand what you mean. Yes, usually every evening Virginia and I enjoy a drink while we play gin. I always drink the Cherry Heering. Virginia likes sherry. I didn’t have a drink over the weekend. Virginia went to stay with her sister up near Hartford for the weekend and only returned late Sunday night. And Monday, well, after they all left I just went upstairs.”

“When was the last time you had any?”

“Friday. No, Thursday evening.”

“So the poison in the Cherry Heering could have been put in the bottle any time over the weekend or on Monday.”

“Or anytime,” Kenneth corrected. “You said it might not kill someone right away. Maybe it’s been in there for weeks, months even. Mother,” Kenneth turned to Mrs. Brissart, “have you been feeling ill?”

“No. Not at all. Nothing.”

“That puts a bit of a different angle on this whole thing,” Detective Maroni deduced. “Not only are the people who showed up on Monday suspects, but anyone who’s been in the house recently.”

Mrs. Brissart added, “and there’s one more thing; I never lock my doors.”

“Mother, I told—”

“Yes, Kenneth, I know. Detectives, my son has tried to get me to lock up for years, but, well, I’ve lived here all my life and nothing has ever happened. But, oh, dear. Something did happen.”

“Now, Mother, that’s not what I meant. No one is blaming you.”

“Of course not, Roberta. You loved Bradley with all your heart, we know that,” Lillian said.

“Well,
I
am. I am blaming myself and that...land! If they want it so badly that they killed my grandson, then they can have it.”

Kenneth and Lillian looked startled. Mrs. Brissart spat out the last words with such venom and a raised voice she probably never used. She looked so tiny and vulnerable sitting in the big overstuffed chair. All three of them, Kenneth, Lillian, and Roberta. What a terrible thing to go through along with the possibility, almost certainty, that one of your own was responsible. And they couldn’t even grieve properly until the police found the killer. How they managed to cope was beyond comprehension.

“Detective Van der Burg, I’m very worried for my mother-in-law. Obviously, there’s at least one person out there wanting to kill her, probably two. Can we be sure there isn’t anything further in the house that contains poison? What about her safety? Whoever did this, well, might they try again?”

“Mrs. Brissart, I’ve thought about that myself.” John turned his attention to Roberta. “I suggest you throw out anything that’s been opened and your cosmetics and creams as well. And maybe you and Mrs. Platz should dine alone for a while and order out or go out to a restaurant.”

“It seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it?”

“No, it most certainly does not, Roberta,” said Lillian. “We’ve already lost Bradley. We will not—
will not
lose you, too.”