Steven Havill: Red, Green, or Murder

“And when was that call?”

“Good God, I don’t remember. All I know is that at one point in a zoo of a morning, Maggie was on the phone with her dad. She stuck her head into my office and reminded me to go over and pick up the casserole dish after lunch.” He closed his eyes, trying to remember. “Late morning, I suppose.”

How did it become so important to pick up a food delivery dish, I thought, thinking of the usual, casual routine.

“Did George ask you to pick up some wine for him?” Estelle asked.

“No,” Phil replied, showing no surprise at the question. “But it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had. He goes through that stuff like water. Maybe he asked Maggie, but she didn’t say anything to me about that.” He leaned forward and rested both hands on his desk, fingers intertwined. “I don’t get this.”

“We realize that this is a painful process for you, but bear with me.” She studied her small notebook. “Did your father-n-law ever talk to you about any allergies he might have had? Serious ones, like to medications, that sort of thing?”

“Allergies?” He laughed weakly. “That would be the last thing George needed. No, he never mentioned that. How’s that related to all this? You think that he had an allergic attack or something?”

“He may have,” Estelle said. “It will be a number of days before we have the toxicology reports back, but it’s an avenue we’re exploring.”

“Wow,” Phil said in wonder. “Now that’s a curveball. Allergic to what, I wonder? All I know about is cats. He’s always grousing about the neighborhood cats in his yard, but I don’t think that had anything to do with allergies. They use his yard as a kitty litter box, and he said nothing stinks worse than a cat.” He pointed his fingers like a handgun. “He always said the damn things made his trigger finger itch.”

“It’s just an avenue to explore,” Estelle said. “Are you expecting Maggie back here in the office this evening?”

“No. She was going over to her dad’s place for a few minutes, and then over to the house. I was going to take her out to dinner.” He grimaced. “God, about time, too. Christ.” He rubbed his face in exasperation. “Try to relax a little. We’ve got an appointment with Salazar tomorrow for the services. George didn’t want anything done, but Maggie and I both decided that we had to do something. Some kind of simple memorial.”

Just a little something to make George’s ghost furious, I thought. I changed the subject. “Had George ever talked to you about his properties? It was my impression that he had land all over the county.” Estelle didn’t fire one of her dark looks my way, so I knew the questions wasn’t out of order.

The question caught Phil by surprise, and for a second or two he looked at me as if I were a stranger. “His property,” Phil muttered as he pulled his thoughts together. “What a mess that is going to be. But yes, he does. Little stuff, I think. A few acres here, a few there. But we haven’t pursued it with the county. You know, he even owns that little nuisance lot behind the county building itself.” He waved a hand in dismissal. I had never thought of property worth seventy or eighty grand as a nuisance, but then again, I wasn’t in real estate.

“But no,” Phil continued, “we never talked about that. I mean George and I didn’t. Now, Maggie mentioned his land holdings now and then,” and he smiled. “With some frustration, too, I might add. You might talk to her about that if you need more information.”

“Probably not,” I said easily. We still knew nothing about a possible will. Among her other challenges in cleaning up after her father, Maggie Payton Borman would have something to look for over at George’s house.

Maggie’s Cadillac was parked at the curb of 1228 Ridgemont, and we pulled in behind the fancy little hotrod. The front door stood open, the storm door propped wide by a ceramic flower pot. If Maggie heard our approach, she didn’t acknowledge it.

I stepped up on the little concrete entry step and rapped on the door jamb.

“In the living room,” Maggie greeted, but her voice sounded flat, even dejected, and I felt a pang of sympathy. I stood to one side to let Estelle pass. To my surprise, George’s daughter was sitting on the center cushion of the old sofa in the tiny living room, her hands clasped together between her knees, looking like a little kid who had run out of toys or joys. She didn’t rise to greet us. The Maggie Payton Borman who bubbled effusively to customers all day long, who appeared to revel in the upside of life, whose glass was always half full rather than half empty-that Maggie had ticked to a stop.

The undersheriff took two steps through the door and halted, a habit so predictable that I was prepared for it and didn’t run her down from behind. She surveyed the room for a few seconds, inventorying. The only changes I could see, beyond a general tidying and dusting, was that the sad bouquet of plastic flowers had been removed from the piano top, and the wool blanket that had adorned the sofa was gone.

Maggie rose wearily. She had reason to be exhausted, beyond the demands of housecleaning, which eventually would be done by someone else anyway.

“Bill and Estelle,” she said, and held out both hands toward me. “I confess I’m not feeling like much of a hostess.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I understand how it goes.”

“And how are you?” Maggie said, holding out a hand to Estelle, but she didn’t wait for the undersheriff to answer. “I’m hearing some disturbing things,” Maggie added. “I don’t know what to think.”

“Disturbing in what way, Mrs. Borman?” Estelle asked. Of course Guy Trombley would have talked with his assistant, Harriet Tomlinson. That didn’t surprise me, nor that Harriet had chatted at the first opportunity with Maggie Borman.

“I’m hearing that there was some sort of complication with dad’s death,” Maggie said. “Some kind of reaction?” Her eyes hardened a bit. “I’m not sure why I should have to hear this from a friend.”

“Nor I,” Estelle said. “Mrs. Borman, did your father ask you to purchase some wine for him yesterday morning?”

Maggie Borman’s lips started to part, but then clamped shut for just an instant as she took the time to engage brain before mouth. I had never thought of her as calculating before this-maybe I had been kidding myself. Now there was caution, a certain wariness in her eyes.

“The wine? That’s what it was? The wine?”

“ It appears that your father had just finished one bottle, then opened a second and poured a glassful. That was the one that was spilled on the kitchen table and floor.”

“Oh, my word,” Maggie Borman murmured. She backed up an awkward step or two and sat down abruptly on the sofa. “Do you think…”

Estelle allowed her a moment, then prompted, “Do we think what, Mrs. Borman?”

“The wine, I mean. Dad just won’t do without it, but when he drinks it by the tumbler, for heaven’s sakes, he gets so breathy. ” Interesting, I thought, how long it took us to switch habits, in this case from present tense to past. Maggie waved a hand in front of her mouth as if trying to force more air down the pipes. “And on top of his meds…”

“Did you purchase the wine for him?” Estelle asked again.

“I…I suppose I did. I had to open it for him. His hands are so arthritic. A corkscrew is just too much for him.”

“What time was that? When you bought the wine and brought it over here?”

“Oh,” Maggie said, and looked at her watch, as if she might have marked the time on the dial for future reference. “I stopped on my way to work this morning, so I suppose…” She cocked her head this way and that. “It would have been shortly after eight, I suppose.”