Shadow of Doubt (4 page)

Jill sighed and waited for the two cops to leave. All of their nerves were shot, and she doubted that any of them would get any rest soon. She bent over the table and looked into Celia's eyes. “Celia, you need to eat.”

“I'm queasy,” she said. “If I eat, I'll throw it up. I know they said I hadn't been poisoned, and I'm sure I haven't, but I still feel sick, Jill.”

“Can I get you anything?” Jill asked. “Some Pepto Bismol, maybe?”

Unaccountably, Celia closed her eyes and her face twisted and reddened as she began to cry again. She grabbed a tissue out of the box on the table and wiped at her nose. “That's what he wanted,” she muttered. “Pepto Bismol. Like that would save him from arsenic poisoning, keep him out of that coma. Oh, why is this happening?”

Jill stood still, looking at her and wondering if she dared leave her alone in this state. “I'll stay here,” she said softly. “I can talk to Aunt Aggie later.”

Celia shook her head and waved a hand at her. “No, go. I'm fine. I need to be alone for a little while, anyway.”

Jill didn't like the sound of that. She looked around the room, wondering if Celia intended to do herself harm. There was nothing in the room that she could use, but one never knew for sure. “Maybe that's not a good idea, Celia. I'll just stay.”

Celia seemed to realize where Jill's thoughts were leading her. “Oh, you don't think I'm going to kill myself or something, do you? For heaven's sake, Jill, I just want to be alone to pray. I haven't had a minute alone in hours.”

“Pray. Of course.” Jill relaxed then and knew it was exactly what she would have expected of Celia if she'd been thinking clearly. In fact, it wouldn't hurt for her to do the same. “All right, Celia. I'll leave you alone.”

Still weeping, Celia dropped her head in the circle of her arms as Jill left the room.

J
ill found Aunt Aggie looking like death warmed over, and she realized how difficult it must be for a woman of her age to endure an all-nighter in a folding chair. The woman sat straight up with her purse in her lap and her feet flat on the floor, her eyes closed, as if she was sound asleep.

Jill bent over and touched her arm gently, reluctant to wake her if she slept. “Aunt Aggie?”

The old woman's eyes flew open, and she asked, “They done torturin' her yet?”

Jill shook her head. “No, they're not finished with her. We're waiting for the report to come back from the lab. In the meantime, I thought maybe you could call Celia's parents and tell them what's happened.”

She gave Jill a bitterly disgusted look. “I ain't spoke one word to my niece since she turned her back on Celia, and I ain't startin' now.”

“But Aunt Aggie, Celia said they were coming to visit her today, and she doesn't want them to hear about this after they get here. Please, won't you call them?”

“I'll call T-David, Celia's brother,” she said. “Him I can talk to. But Celia's mama's hardheaded as a ram. I could go the rest of my life without talkin' to her, what she done to that poor girl.”

Aggie got to her feet, resisting Jill's help, and started walking. “Which phone can we use?”

“Take that one,” Jill said, pointing to an empty desk. “We'll use my credit card number.”

Jill punched in the preliminary code, then gave the phone to Aunt Aggie. She dialed the number, rattling on as she did. “David lives in that mausoleum of a house with 'em…disgraceful how big it is…on three hundred acres…and he gots a whole wing to hisself. But sometimes his mama answers his line, and when she does, I just hang up…”

“Don't hang up this time, Aunt Aggie. Celia needs for you to do this.”

Jill watched the tension on the old woman's face as she waited for the ring to be answered. When it was, she pulled her chin up and tightened her lips and said, “David, please. Well, where can I reach 'im? Yeah, Joanna, it's me.” Her face was reddening, and she shot Jill a disgusted look. “No, that ain't why I'm callin'. I was glad you finally got over your bullheadedness to make up with your daughter. But Celia can't make it today, so don't come.”

It was not how she would have handled it, Jill thought, irritated, but it was too late to do anything about it.

Aunt Aggie listened, her lips growing even thinner. “No, she ain't backed out, Joanna. But Stan, he's sick, in the hospital. Somebody tried to poison him.”

Again, Jill's spirits sagged. There must be a better way to break the news, but delicacy had never been one of Aunt Aggie's traits.

Aunt Aggie closed her eyes, as though bracing herself for what came next, and when she opened them again Jill could see pure rage in her eyes. “No, Celia didn't do it, just like she didn't do it last time, but you never believe that 'cause you don't know your daughter. All you care about is yourself and your stupid, silly family name, which nobody cares nothin' about!”

Incredulous at how badly this was going, Jill snatched the phone out of Aunt Aggie's hand. The old woman surrendered it gladly.

“Uh…Mrs. Bradford? This is Jill Clark, a friend of Celia's.”

“Where is my aunt?” the woman asked. Hers was a soft voice, very similar to Celia's, and she didn't sound like the shrew Aunt Aggie had made her out to be at all. “I need to talk to my aunt.”

“Uh…she doesn't want to talk to you anymore, Mrs. Bradford. But I thought you should know that your daughter needs you now more than ever. Because of her first husband's cause of death, the police have been questioning her.”

“Then they've arrested her again?”

“No. They're only questioning her.” She could hear the muffled sob on the other end, something that surprised her. “I know it would help her tremendously if she had your moral support now, especially on her birthday. I'm an attorney and I'm doing everything I can to clear this up, but for now—”

“I should have known.”

Jill hesitated. “Mrs. Bradford, you should have known what?”

“That this reconciliation, this reunion…was too good to be true.” A moment of silence passed. “I had such hopes.”

“You can still have a reunion.”

“Is he dead?” The words seemed to come on a wave of emotion.

“No. He's in a coma.”

“He was a nice man. I liked him very much. I could see why Celia loved him.”

She ignored her use of past tense. “Yes, it's quite a tragedy. More so because of what Celia's going through.”

“Thank you for calling, Miss Clark. I appreciate it.”

Jill sat there for a moment, holding the line. “Is that all? Aren't you going to come?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“But your daughter needs you.”

“She has my aunt.”

“Mrs. Bradford—”

The phone clicked in her ear, and Jill froze, still holding it.

“Hanged up on you, didn't she?” Aggie asked.

“Yes, she did.”

“If there was a hell, it would be for folks like her.”

“There is a hell, Aunt Aggie. And you don't want to wish it on your niece.”

She watched as the old woman dug a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. Across the room, Sid got off of his own telephone and headed toward her.

“What did you find out?” she asked as he reached her.

He leaned over the desk, bracing himself with his hands. “There wasn't a trace of arsenic in any of the evidence we collected from the house,” he said, “'cept for what Stan had…purged.”

“All right, now we're getting somewhere,” Jill said, springing up with renewed energy. “Sid, you have to see that if Celia had done this, there would have been some evidence.”

“She didn't have to do it at home, Jill. She's experienced, remember? She knows how to cover her tracks.”

“Cover her tracks?” Jill asked in a whisper, to keep from giving the gossip mill more fodder. “Give me a break! She'd have to be pretty stupid to think she was covering her tracks by poisoning her husband someplace else, with the
same
poison she was accused of using on her first husband! Don't you think she'd know that she would be the very first suspect?”

“Maybe that's what she is, Jill. Stupid. Or maybe she's just crazy. You ever thought of that? You'd better, because when I get through gatherin' all the evidence in this case, the insanity defense might be her only hope.”

Before either of them knew what had happened, Aggie had leaped up and swung her purse across Sid's head, knocking him over.

“Man!” he shouted. “Why'd you do that?”

“Don't you talk 'bout my niece like that again!” the old woman shouted.

“That thing must weigh a ton!” Sid staggered back, holding the side of his head. “Whatcha got in there? Bricks? I could arrest you for assaultin' a police officer.”

“You do it! Throw a eighty-one-year-old woman in jail, see what it gets you!”

He backed off, as if too exhausted to fight her anymore. “Guess this insanity thing runs in the blasted family.”

Then mumbling under his breath, he headed for Jim Shoemaker's office.

Jill caught up with him and blocked his entrance. “Sid, is my client under arrest?”

“That's what I'm goin' in to talk to the chief about.”

“You don't have probable cause. You don't have a shred of evidence. All you have is an unsolved case from six years ago.” Sid ignored her and tried to get around her.

“Sid,
think
. Why would she tell you it was arsenic if she
wanted
him dead? It would have taken days to discover that, postmortem, if they hadn't known to test him for it. Use your logic!”

“My logic tells me she could be a few bricks shy of a full load, Jill. That maybe she tried to kill him and got cold feet at the last minute. I'll leave that to the psychiatrists. All's I know is we got a police detective layin' half dead in the hospital, and she's the only suspect we got. I don't care how blonde, how pretty, or how married she is. If she's a killer, I'm gon' lock her up.”

Jill wasn't about to leave it at that. As he started into Jim's office, she followed him in.

“Jim, since you're finished questioning my client, I'm telling her she can leave,” she blurted before Sid could get anything out.

“Oh, no, you don't,” Sid said. “Jim, I'm gon' book her.”

Jim sank back in his seat. “You can't book her, Sid. We don't have any compelling evidence or any probable cause.”

Jill shot him a satisfied look, but he didn't give up.

“Jim, who else coulda done it?” Sid demanded. “Look, she's my friend, too. I've always liked Celia. But the facts just stack up against her.”

“What if you're wrong?” Jim asked. “And you have to explain to Stan why you locked up his wife when he needed her most? And on her birthday, to boot.”

Jill leaned over his desk. “Jim, all she wants to do is go back to the hospital and be with him. She's scared to death. Let her go. You'll know where she is.”

Jim nodded and looked up at Sid. “Tell her she can go home, but not to leave town.”

“What about Slidell?” Jill asked. “That's where Stan is.”

“Tell her not to go farther than Slidell. And we may have to question her more later.”

Sid went to a filing cabinet and leaned his elbow on it. His anger was on simmer, working up to a low boil. Jim got up, rubbing his paunch. “Sid, the investigation continues. If you show me evidence that Celia did this, I won't hesitate to lock her up.”

Sid nodded and started back out the door. “I got work to do.”

Jill shook Jim's hand and thanked him, then went to tell Celia the good news.

T
hey had moved Stan to a room by the time Celia got back to the hospital, and she hurried up to his floor. Hannah and Bart, her in-laws, were in there with him, watching a television set with the sound turned low. It was as if they watched out of politeness, since it was there and they didn't know what else to do with themselves. Hannah's mouse-brown hair was mashed flat on one side, as if she hadn't teased it back into shape since being awakened in the middle of the night. Bart hadn't shaved.

Hannah sprang up when Celia came through the door. As if she'd been holding back her tears just for Celia, her mother-in-law began to cry and hugged her fiercely. “How is he?” Celia asked.

“There's been no change, Celia. Where have you been? Allie said you were filling out a police report, but we didn't know it would take all night.”

A police report. Good for Allie, Celia thought. “I didn't expect it to, either.” She went to the bed and leaned tentatively over Stan. “Has he been awake at all?”

“No,” Bart said. “Celia, if they kept you that long at the police station, you must know something. Do you know who could have poisoned Stan?”

Her eyes were misty as she looked up at him across the bed. “Bart, if I knew…oh, if I only knew…but I don't have a clue.” She touched Stan's face gently. His stubble was thick. It surprised her. It seemed to her that all of his body functions should have stopped out of respect for his state. Hair growth had no place on a face as pale as death.

Tears came to her eyes. “He's not doing well, is he?”

“No, he's not. Tell us what happened,” Bart said. “Last night, before they brought him in.”

She raked her hair back from her face, wishing for a shower. “He was just really sick. Throwing up, his throat was hurting, he was really weak. I thought he just had a virus or something. But then he got really sick, and he passed out, and I called an ambulance…” Her voice trailed off in fatigued defeat.

“Stan, wake up, honey,” she said close to his ear. “Wake up. Please, honey. It's my birthday. All I want is for you to open your eyes.”

Hannah was still weeping, and she pulled a tissue out of the box on the table. “Happy birthday, Celia,” she said softly.

Celia wiped her eyes. “Thanks.” Distressed, she breathed in a sob. “Why won't he wake up? Haven't they done anything for him? Shouldn't it be working by now?”

Bart came around the bed and pulled both women into a strong hug. “We don't know,” he whispered. “The doctor isn't sure how bad this is. It may have been a lethal dose.”

“He's
not
gonna die,” Celia said, pulling back and looking into her father-in-law's face. “Bart, he's not. They caught it in time. They just had to.”

They all held each other and wept for a long time, until finally Celia urged them to go to the cafeteria and eat breakfast. They hadn't left Stan's side since he'd been brought to the room. Reluctantly, they agreed and left her alone with him.

When they had left, she sat beside Stan on his bed, talking to him and praying over him, stroking his chest and his face. But there was no response.

She tried to imagine his eyelashes fluttering, his eyelids opening, color coming back into his face. But the image was elusive. The fear of his death was so great that it couldn't be overridden. She thought of Nathan lying dead on an emergency room gurney, how she'd flown into hysterics until they'd had to sedate her. Finally, before the coroner had taken him, they had allowed her a few moments alone with him.

People said it was easier to cope when you had closure—when you could see the death and experience the finality of it. But it had all come too soon, too unexpectedly. There was no such thing as closure. Even the shock and the sedatives hadn't helped.

Now she clung to the sound of the heart monitor testifying to the life still left in Stan's body, to the stubble that felt like sandpaper under her palm, to the feverish heat of his skin against her lips…heat that was so much better than cold.

She dropped her forehead on his chest and sank into her sobs, feeling the comfort of him even though he didn't move. If he'd awakened, he would have held her while she cried, as he'd done so many times since he'd met her, when she'd been trapped by grief over Nathan, or her parents, or the fear of some evil still out there without name or face.

But now that evil had descended once again, claiming Stan as its next casualty. She couldn't fathom how this could happen again.

After a while, Bart and Hannah burst into the room, startling her. Their faces had changed, and their eyes shone with rage. “Why didn't you tell us?” Bart demanded.

She looked up at them, confused. “Tell you what?”

“About your first husband.” The words were uttered with horror. “That he died this way.”

Her face drained of all its color, and she felt the heart-deep fatigue from crying buckets of tears. “I was going to tell you.”

“Then it's true?” Hannah asked. “We didn't even know that you'd been married before. Did you lie to Stan, too?”

“No,” she said. “I didn't lie to anyone. Stan knew the truth. I just didn't think it needed to be broadcast all over the place. I came here to escape the gossip.” She left Stan's bedside and faced them with teary eyes. “But gossip has a way of regenerating, doesn't it? Who told you?”

“Simone, the 911 dispatcher,” Bart said. “We called to see if they had a suspect yet, and she said you were the only one!”

Celia sank onto the vinyl couch.

“We were good to you,” Hannah cried. “We treated you like our own daughter. How could you—” Her voice broke off, and she stepped closer to the bed. “I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.”

“Leave? Hannah, he's my husband. I'm not going anywhere.” She got up and walked toward them, intent on making them understand. “Yes, I was married before. Nathan was murdered, this same way. Hannah, Bart, you have to understand that the same person who did that must have done this, too. They set me up last time, and now it's happening again. You have to believe me. I didn't do it.”

They both looked horror-stricken and confused. “I don't know what to believe,” Hannah said. “Someone tried to murder my son. Simone says that you were charged with the first murder.”

“Charged but not convicted. Hannah, you know me! You know what kind of person I am! Have I ever given you reason to think I'm a killer?”

“We didn't have all the facts,” Bart said. “If we'd known that you'd been accused of murdering your first husband…”

“What?” she cut in. “You would have stood in the way of our marriage? That's why Stan decided not to tell you. You would have judged me unfairly. I'm
innocent.”

“We can't know that for sure,” Hannah whispered through her tears. “All we know is that our son is fighting for his life, and we just…we don't know what to think about you anymore.”

“But Hannah!”

“Go home,” Bart said. “It isn't good for you to be here.”

“I'm his wife! I need to be here.”

“But if you're involved…” Hannah looked so distraught that Celia felt sorry for her. She was a tigress protecting her offspring. “Celia, we need for you to go home. Just…keep your distance for a while. Until we understand…everything.”

“I don't want to leave him!” Celia cried. “Please, don't make me do this! He needs me. When he wakes up, he's going to look for me. He loves me, Hannah. Bart? Don't you know that he loves me?”

“We've never questioned that,” Bart said, his lips trembling. “It's just that…these secrets, Celia. We have to sort them all out.”

She suddenly felt nauseous, and her head hurt…and her heart ached.

She didn't know how much more she could take. Part of her felt that if she left Stan now, he would just fade away, and she'd never see him again. The other part felt that her very presence created strife and grief and angst. Her in-laws were not judgmental people. They weren't vindictive fault-finders.

They were just scared, and she couldn't say she blamed them. If she'd had reason to think that either of them had hurt Stan, she would have reacted the same way.

Finally, she kissed her husband good-bye, and wept as she left the room.