Death Comes eCalling (13 page)

I set Denise’s dish on the table and grabbed my wallet, “I’m writing you a check for seven-fifty.”

“Hello, Tiffany.” Denise had again donned her Binky-the-Clown voice. “I didn’t know you were here. We go right by your house. Can we give you a ride home?”

“Sure. Whatever.” She held out her palm for the check.

“Just to let you know, if you ever choose to babysit for my children again, I’ll pay four dollars an hour.”

She snatched the check from me and let the screen door bang behind her.

Sam and Denise said again how shocking Steve’s death was and how sorry they were. Moments after they’d shut the door, there was a quick knock, then Denise popped back inside. She gave me a nervous smile. “I keep forgetting to bring this up. Sam told me about your being railroaded into being PTA secretary/treasurer. That’s so awful of Stephanie. So I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ll take over as treasurer, anyway.”

“Oh, great. Thanks. I’ll just call Stephanie and—”

“You don’t need to do that. I’ll tell her myself. Just give me the records and checkbook, and I’ll take it from there.”

“I haven’t gotten the treasurer’s stuff yet.”

“You haven’t?” She paused. “So you haven’t even looked at anything yet?”

“Not yet.’ I didn’t understand Denise”s reaction. She looked relieved. “
Should
I have?”

“No, absolutely not.” She made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “The financial statements for the PTA are complicated. If you can just pass everything to me the moment you get them, I’ll take over for you.”

“Why don’t I just call Stephanie and have her give them directly to you?”

“No, no, no. She won’t like being usurped like that. I was thinking you can be the treasurer of record, I’ll do the actual work, and everybody’s happy.”

“So you want me to
pretend
to be treasurer? But give you the actual control of the PTA’s money?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

A car honked from nearby. Denise leaned out the door and hollered, “Just one second.”

Maybe it was merely a byproduct of my bashed head, but none of this made sense. “We can’t do that, Denise. If my name is on the PTA accounts as treasurer, I’m ultimately responsible for what happens to their money.”

“Fine. You don’t trust me.” She threw her hands in the air. “I try to do a friend a favor, and you insult me. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Hours later, my head injury was throbbing. Though I leaned back against an ice bag as I watched an NFL game, the pain was omnipresent. Watching men hit the poop out of one another probably didn’t help.

Lauren had not returned my call about my having a dinner from Denise in my freezer. After the game ended, I sketched a non-occasion card. A woman is sitting on her front steps. Behind her an enormous tree has fallen onto her house. A man in a business suit is looking at the house in horror, as she says, “Welcome home, dear. Have a nice day at the office?”

Later I thrilled Karen and Nathan by ordering pizza for dinner. Partway into our meal the phone rang. I answered brusquely.

“Molly. I need— You’ve got to help me.”

The voice was so strained with emotion, it took me a moment to recognize. “Lauren? What’s wrong?”

“I’m at the police station. They’ve arrested me for murder.”

Chapter 10

No Time for Wrappin’

Lauren gave me little information in her phone call. I didn’t know why the police had arrested her. Maybe she’d even confessed, out of some sense of panic or guilt. In any case, she told me she was innocent, and I believed her.

I offered to take care of Rachel, but Lauren said she wanted Rachel to stay with Steve’s sister in Potsdam till the funeral. I volunteered to call the sister. Lauren said Tommy was already making those arrangements; she just needed my help in getting her released on bond.

This was not my area of expertise. My one experience with a bail bondsman thus far had been years ago in Denver when I’d wandered into a shabby little business to ask for change for the parking meter. In the lobby of fake mahogany paneling sat a large, dark man with a dozen gold chains around his neck and gold rings on every chubby finger. He’d chuckled at my request, but took my dollar and gave me four quarters. In a voice badly damaged by God knows what, he leered at me and said, “Usually deal wit’ larger amounts. Pleasure doin’ business wit’ ya just do same.” I vowed then and there to avoid any future dealings with anyone in that particular field.

Instead of breaking that vow, I phoned Stephanie, whose continuous brushings with rich and famous folk could, for once, come in handy. I asked her who the best criminal lawyer in town was.

She gasped, then said, “Oh, Moll, Moll. Now they’ve arrested you for Steve’s murder!”

“Yes, well, I try to stay busy. Can you please just give me the name of a good lawyer?”

She gave me a name, said, “You can trust me to keep this quiet,” and hung up. The lines allover upstate New York were no doubt abuzz with the news that I’d been charged with Steve Wilkins’s murder.

I called and explained the situation to the lawyer’s wife. She muttered, “Why did your friend have to get arrested on a Sunday? That’s the only day Mike has off.”

I managed to keep my voice calm as I apologized on Lauren’s behalf for ruining her day. Numerous phone calls later, I’d been assured Lauren would be out on bond by tomorrow afternoon.

The weather turned chilly overnight. Monday morning I packed my children off on the school bus. Now if I could just arrange to have all of my daily crises occur between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and noon when kindergarten was in session. I waved goodbye to my children, then headed to the Carlton police station.

A female officer pointed me toward Sergeant Newton’s tiny office. If the door had opened in instead of out, it would have banged into his desk. I marched in and shut the door firmly, fully determined to make Tommy suffer for my pent-up hostilities.

“Hey, Moll.” He gestured at the folding chair across from his desk. “What’s up?”

Because standing and looking down on Tommy put me in the power position, I remained on my feet, on the lone unoccupied square foot of linoleum. “You arrested Lauren for murder, that’s what! You arrested an innocent person.”

“Think so?”

“I know so! Why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I what?”

“Why don’t you know that Lauren Wilkins is not a murderer!”

“We got some evidence here ‘n’ there.”

“What evidence?”

“With all due respect, Molly, that’s for the judge to learn about at her preliminary hearing.”

“For God’s sake. We went to school with this woman. You’ve lived in the same town with her for thirty-plus years. You, of all people, should know she’s not capable of murder. She’s a mother. How could you do this to her?”

“A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.”

“Give me a break.”

Tommy held up a hand in unspoken apology. “You don’t believe your friend is a murderer. That’s understandable. Wouldn’t have expected you to waltz in here ‘n’ tell me your best friend is a killer, but a good person in every other way.” He paused, then furrowed his brow. “But see, when we make an arrest, we don’t use such things as women’s intuition. We go by probable cause.”

Women’s intuition? Now he had my dander up. “That’s probable cause, as in whatever made you arrest Lauren Wilkins was probably caused by someone’s screw-up.”

“You’re accusin’ the police of screwing up?”

I nodded. My knees felt weak. When I stood for long periods of time, my head wound started throbbing. I sat down on the folding chair. From this vantage point, I could see a photo on his desk of two redheaded boys.

Between them stood a dark-haired, pleasant-looking woman. I had to look away, or my righteous indignation would be lost I wanted Tommy to tell me what evidence they had against Lauren, so that I could help her disprove it.

“I guess, then, hand in hand with that little accusation is the idea that you know better than us dumb ol’ police folk. Who do
you
think killed Steve Wilkins?”

“I have no idea, Tommy. I’m not a criminal investigator.”

His smug smile annoyed me. “But if I had to say right now, I’d say it was your girlfriend, Carolee Richards.”

That certainly caused the smile to leave his face in a hurry. “Carolee? Why?”

“Because she’s one of the few people who would’ve known how to kill Mrs. Kravett and make it look like an accident.”

“Mrs. Kravett? What makes you think Mrs. Kravett was murdered?”

“I talked to her sister. She told me about the pills.”

He leaned back in his chair. “You’re tellin’ me Ellen Steinway
knew
the pills had been switched?”

“So someone
did
switch the digitalis with the Lasix,” I said. “She was taking three times the normal dosage of Lasix, and a third the dose of digitalis. And that led to her heart failure.”

“All right, Molly. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. ‘Sides, I don’t want you mouthin’ off your theory ‘bout Carolee, ‘cause you’re way out in left field. I’ll tell you what I can.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. “Those prescriptions were filled by the druggist down town. Nothin’ to do with the hospital where Carolee works. Further, given the blood test results, the pills had to have been switched ‘bout a month before her death. I was at Mrs. Kravett’s barbecue in July. So was Lauren.
Her
fingerprints were on both bottles, not Carolee’s.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Those bottles were handled by Mrs. Kravett a hundred times after the barbecue. How could the prints have stayed on the bottles that long?”

“Just bad luck for Lauren. We got a partial of a thumb on the bottoms of both bottles. Most times when someone grabs their pill bottle, that’s not where they touch it.”

“But…I found my cup in Carolee’s house. Maybe she’s a thief. Maybe she’d been stealing and Steve found out so—”

“Lemme get this straight. You think Carolee killed Steve Wilkins to keep him from revealin’ that she took your teacup?”

My face warmed. I was beginning to wish I could leave, come back, and start this conversation all over again.

Tommy was fighting back a smile. “That’d be quite a drastic reaction. Wouldn’t you say?”

“So you’ve charged Lauren with killing Mrs. Kravett, too?”

He shook his head. “Not enough evidence. Yet. ‘Sides, her death isn’t officially murder.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s possible it was accidental. The pharmacist could’ve mislabeled the pills when Mrs. Kravett got her prescriptions refilled. I talked to the druggist and he denies it, but we can’t rule it out as a possibility. Good defense lawyer’d hop all over it. Reasonable doubt.”

“And you’re sure it was Mrs. Kravett who picked up those prescriptions, no one else?”

“Yep. Signed for them. Got her signature on record. Yet the pills are definitely in the wrong bottles. Lauren’s finger prints on ‘em. Nobody else’s. ‘Cept of course, Mrs. Kravett’s.”

“Who else was at the barbecue?”

“Lauren. She claimed Steve was working. Denise and her husband. I can never remember his name.”

“Sam Bakerton.”

“Right. Also Jack Vance and his date. She looked like a high schooler. Stephanie and Preston Saunders. Plus a batch of people from other graduatin’ classes.”

“You said you had a
partial
thumbprint Couldn’t it have been someone else’s?”

He shook his head. “They’re hers. More importantly, her fingerprints were also on the knife.”

“She could’ve used that knife at the party. She opened that bottle of wine you brought. She probably used it to cut open the metal wrapper on the cork.”

“That’s what she says happened. But things don’t look so hot for her. Got a hotel clerk who says Lauren was all set to sign in, near hysterics, Friday night. Steve shows up and says she can’t have Rachel, ‘n’ grabs her. Yells that if she wanted custody of her daughter so bad, she shoulda been more careful ‘fore lettin’ Rachel see her own mother in bed with another man.”

I had to grip the edges of my chair; otherwise, I might have fallen from my shock. “With what man?”

He ignored my question. “Steve was writin’ Lauren a good-riddance letter when he got stabbed.”

Dear God. “I don’t believe any of this, Tommy. Lauren’s a good mother. She would never—”

“She admits to most of it. Says she didn’t stab her husband, though.”

I stared at my knees, embarrassed, angry, hurt. Why hadn’t she told me about this? It felt as if Lauren had betrayed me, as well as Steve. I asked quietly, “Where’s Rachel now? Can I talk to her?”

“She’s on her way up to Potsdam with her aunt. She’ll be all right.”

I glared at him. “If you were seven and your mother was accused of murdering your father because of something you’d witnessed, would you be all right?”

He winced. He looked at the photograph of his children and their deceased mom.

I stood up, grabbed the doorknob, and headed out, my senses reeling.

“Take it easy,” he called after me.

I got into my car and started the engine. I was now on a mission, to clear Lauren’s name, for Rachel’s sake. I smacked the steering wheel and said to myself, “I’m not going to let Rachel go for one extra minute thinking she’s in any way responsible for her father’s death.”

I drove to the only drugstore downtown. The pharmacist looked just like he should: tall, white-haired, wire-rim glasses, white lab coat. He smiled down at me, leading me to wonder just why it was that every drugstore counter I’ve ever seen is built on a platform. Is that to make us all feel like helpless children when we ask for drugs? Or are would-be robbers supposed to trip on the steps?

“May I help you?”

“I have some questions about medications. I’m Molly Masters. Maybe you know my parents, the Petersons?”

“Ah. Molly. You’re their oldest daughter. How’re your sister’s allergies?”

“Uh…much better.”

He chuckled. “Pardon me. It’s a professional liability. Just as bartenders remember regulars for what they drink, I remember people by their medications.”