Steven Havill - Red, Green, or Murder

“At Town and Country?”

“Yes, but,” and Maggie clamped her hands together against her chest. “do you really think it was the wine? I mean, he liked the same old thing.”

“After you purchased the wine, you brought it over here?”

Maggie nodded immediately. “I did. Dad said that you were going to join him.” She smiled affectionately at me. “He was so looking forward to that.”

“Wish I’d kept the date,” I said. “But you know how things go, Maggie.”

“Oh, I do,” she said. “And then later, he called to say that you’d gotten tied up somehow but that the Don Juan was delivering for him. So that was all right.”

“You asked Phil to run by and check on your dad?”

“I told him he should if he got the chance. And I would, too, if things cleared up.” She heaved a great sigh. “It’s so sad, the elderly. That’s what I think. I see dad sitting at that table,” and she turned to gaze toward the kitchen, “eating all by himself.”

“Your dad always enjoyed his own company,” I said, although I knew that’s a concept that many people find hard to accept.

“I suppose so,” Maggie said, and pushed up out of the sofa. “The wine.” She shook her head. “There are blood tests for that sort of thing, I suppose.”

“Sure,” I said. “They take a while. We won’t have a full panel of toxicology reports back for days-maybe weeks.”

“Will you keep me posted?” She frowned one of those you won’t make that mistake again, will you? expressions at both of us.

“Rest assured,” Estelle said, and the two words might have sounded comforting to Maggie but sure as hell didn’t to me.

Maggie reached out a hand and rested it on my forearm. “And Bill, when you have time, I wanted to sit down with you and talk about all of Dad’s hardware.” She sighed. “I have no idea what those guns are all worth, or who would be interested. And if there’s anything you would want…”

“That’s very kind of you, but I can’t think of a thing, Maggie. Got a lot of good memories, and that’s enough.”

“Well, if there is something, I’m sure dad would have wanted you to have it. If you could help me with some of the appraising, I’d be grateful.”

“Whatever I can do,” I said and glanced at Estelle to see if she had more on her mind. But she had flipped her notebook closed and checked her watch.

“Did your father leave a will?” she asked. “That will make it so much easier.”

“Oh, my,” Maggie said, shaking her head in exaggerated exasperation. “If I had a dollar for each time we talked about that.” She held up both hands in surrender. “Promises, promises.”

“So he didn’t?”

“Not to my knowledge. But then…” Maggie surveyed the living room. “Who knows? He would never talk about it. I don’t even know what lawyer he used…if any.”

“Did he ever talk about the deal he had going with Herb Torrance?”

She waved a hand airily at my question.

“Oh, dad and his land.” She sat down on the sofa again. “All of that’s going to have to wait until after probate, unless we find some paperwork. You know, I talked with Miles Waddell just last week. He’s been trying to get dad to sell him that little wedge of property on top of the mesa out that way, out where the BLM is toying around with the cave project.” She rolled her eyes. “We’ll all be old and feeble by the time that breaks ground, but Miles really wanted to move on it. You know, I’m not sure that Dad really liked him, that’s the trouble. He’d rather give land away to someone he likes than sell to someone he doesn’t…I don’t see what difference it all makes. A sale is a sale. And dad certainly had no use for any of it.”

“Like stamp collecting,” I offered, and Maggie laughed agreement. She rose to see us to the door, and as we passed through, nudged the ceramic pot with the toe of a well-polished shoe.

“It’s getting chilly these evenings,” she said. “I just had to start airing out the cigars. My, how that odor clings.”

We settled into the car and the doors thudded shut. Estelle finished her meticulous notations in her log, her head shaking from side to side the whole time as if she disapproved of each word and number that she wrote.

“She lied,” I said, although Estelle wouldn’t have missed the obvious. “God damn it, she lied.”

“And she’s a flight risk.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” I responded, but I knew the undersheriff was right and that anything else was wishful thinking. In fact, I’d been guilty of wishful thinking about Maggie’s innocence all day.

Estelle snapped her log closed. “She’s middle-aged, used to the pretty good life, and facing the certainty of prison,” she said. “If she can run, she will.”

“I can predict all kinds of problems, though,” I said. “For one thing, you don’t have a single print of Maggie’s…not on the wine bottle, not on the histamine bottle, not on the glasses. Other than a lapse of memory about when she bought the wine and took it to her father’s house…”

“That’s all true.”

“You have testimony that Maggie was in the pharmacy, along with a fair collection of other people, but not that she was caught out in the back, in the compounding room where the histamine was kept. No one saw her at her father’s place, before, during, or after. You know the mess a good defense attorney is going to make of this case?”

“But,” Estelle said, and started the car.

“But what? Yes, I agree she has motive as much anyone. Maybe more. It makes my gut ache, but I see that. It looks like George was giving away property hand over fist, and obviously she gains if she can stop the flow.” I thumped the dash with the heel of my hand. “Nickel, dime, nickel dime. A few hundred grand maybe, at the most.”

The undersheriff lifted her shoulders, and I knew what that meant. “Yes,” I said, “We both have seen folks murdered for a good deal less.” I huffed a sigh. “We have the means. I’m not sure we have the opportunity. And without something firm there, a defense attorney will make hash.”

“If Maggie stopped by her father’s place at noon, just as he was sitting down to eat, that’s opportunity.”

“Ah, but,” I said. “She would need to have the histamine in her possession well before yesterday…she’d have no way to know for sure when this supposed opportunity would present itself.”

“Exactly so, padrino. Exactly so. Guy Trombley said that the last time he compounded histolatum was in May, for Phil’s sister. Then she died. Let’s suppose that somehow, Maggie found the opportunity to take the chemical. Guy wouldn’t even know it was gone. Sir, he didn’t know it was gone when we first checked with him. It came as a complete surprise.”

“You’re saying that Maggie might have been wandering around for who knows how many goddamn months, the stuff in her purse, waiting for an opportunity?”

“So to speak. Or working up courage, hoping something would change her mind. Maybe she did argue with her father against giving away the property. Maybe she did. And maybe her father stone-walled her. Yesterday, the opportunity presented itself. Her dad calls asking her to pick up some wine, and with the news that you’ve canceled out on lunch. She goes over to Ridgemont, and sure enough, the old man sees a fresh bottle of wine, chugs the remains of the old bottle, and then heads for the bathroom. She opens the new one, pours, and spikes. Even time to wipe the bottle.”

“Could have, maybe, maybe,” I said. “I’d still bet on the defense attorney.”

“She’s a sales professional,” she said, enunciating each syllable. “And that’s why I think she’ll run, given the chance, sir. She cuts deals. That’s what she does for a living. But right now, she doesn’t know how little we have. As soon as it’s clear that we’re not just chasing a red wine allergy, as soon as she knows that we have her trapped in a lie, she’ll be ready to cut a deal.”