Leann Sweeney - Pick Your Poison

“But Cloris was different?” I asked, a strange tightness constricting my chest. Twins. Cloris gave birth to twin girls.

“Way different. She came here with only the clothes on her back. A sad young woman, and bearing some trouble she wouldn’t talk about. Had worried eyes, same color as yours.”

“But she signed the papers?” I asked, my voice sounding small and faraway. Twins. This couldn’t be real. There had to be an explanation other than the one I couldn’t push from conscious thought.

“Well, see, I don’t know. I assumed she did. But after the birth she took sick. Got to coughing so, and I couldn’t get her fever down. She nearly gave up when she came ’round and found out Feldman had taken the babies already. But I wouldn’t let her die. Uh-uh. No, ma’am. But though her body finally healed, her heart wasn’t mended. She left the money behind, the five hundred Sam gave her to start over.”

“She tried to get those children back,” I said quietly. “Tried for a long time. And was murdered for her trouble.”

“And you think Sam killed her because she came too close?”

“Yes,” I said, then lapsed into silence.

I heard Sally Jean saying, “I could kick myself from here to Lufkin for trusting the Doc and Sam so completely. As far as my husband’s concerned, he probably didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. And me? I cooked and cleaned and cared for the girls, thinking I was doing good works all those years.”

I blinked, forcing myself back into the present moment. “You won’t tell Feldman I came here, will you?”

“Do I look like I fell off the stupid truck?”

“Good.” I stood. “If you’ll give me his address, I’ll be on my way. I can’t thank you enough for the information.”

“If he’s killed two people, seems to me getting rid of you would be easy, girl. Best to call the police, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” I said. But I would not be calling the police. Not yet.

“You be careful then, little lady.” She took a piece of paper and wrote the address, handing it to me just as a voice echoed down the hallway.

“Sally Jean! It’s me,” a woman called through the latched screen at the front of the house.

The door rattled. Thank goodness Sally Jean had fastened the hook, because I recognized that voice. Helen Hamilton.

“Is there a another way out?” I whispered.

She nodded and gestured for me to follow her.

I hurried out the back door, then drove two blocks before calling Sally Jean on my cell. She picked up on the second ring.

“It’s me, Abby. Is she still there?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Sally Jean.

“Standing near you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied cheerfully.

“Can you delay her so I can visit Feldman?”

“I’ll try. Friday sounds fine,” she said, covering for me.

“Thanks.” I disconnected and sped west. I had to make a move while Sally Jean was delaying Hamilton or miss my chance at Feldman—even though I was no longer sure I wanted to know the truth.

No, I wanted to believe in coincidences. And the kindness of the only father I had ever known and the invalid mother I had not.

But I’d been fishing in troubled waters for more than a week, and it was time to reel in that shark Feldman.

An older man answered the door after I knocked, then backed up six feet inside. He looked seventy or close to it, with thinning silver hair and piercing blue eyes. Though I’d realized Feldman would be old, a geriatric murderer didn’t quite jell with my image of a criminal.

“Terry Armstrong, Houston police,” I said, extending one of the business cards I’d been hanging on to for a moment like this. “Are you Samuel Feldman?”

I’d told the big lie this time. The illegal kind. But with the word twins battering my brain unmercifully, I really didn’t care.

“Yes, I’m Samuel Feldman,” he said, stepping forward and snatching the card before retreating again into the shadowy foyer.

I was now face-to-face with this slimeball, and though he looked frail, his voice sounded strong and self-assured. I would have preferred weak and wavering.

“I’m a consultant in the Unsolved Crimes division, and I have a few questions,” I said. “Can I come in or should we go down to the precinct?”

He hesitated a second, then replied, “What’s this about?”

“It’s about murder, sir. Would you like to discuss this here or go downtown?” I didn’t stop to consider what I’d do if he actually told me to take him “downtown.”

“I can give you a minute, but I know nothing about any murder.” He turned abruptly and I followed him inside, wondering if he’d noticed my trembling hands or an expression that surely must have relayed how sick I felt inside.

A winding staircase rose to my right, and the foyer ceiling opened up to the second floor. A gleaming chandelier hung above our heads, and this hallway alone could have housed a family of four. I couldn’t help thinking that all this wealth had been achieved thanks to exorbitant fees paid by hundreds of desperate people over the past thirty years. Had I known one of those desperate souls? Lived with him all my life?

Feldman walked briskly to the left, into a formal living area furnished with an expensive-looking modular sofa and heavy white drapes on the picture window with a bay view. A palatial room, one that reminded me of winter.

“What’s this about?” he said curtly.

He sat on the sofa near the fireplace, and I sat opposite him, seemingly a football field away. A heavily varnished coffee table fashioned from the trunk of a redwood filled the U space between us.

“I’m investigating the deaths of a couple named Grayson,” I said. “You may remember the wife. Her name was Cloris, and her children were placed in an adoptive home through your agency many years ago.”

He crossed his legs and leaned back against the white cushions. “Thousands of children came through my agency, and by the way, I don’t own or operate that business any longer.”

Maybe not on paper, I thought. He’d no doubt covered himself there. “Let me refresh your memory. Cloris Grayson caused a bit of trouble in your life... before someone murdered her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. We know you placed her twins, and we know she tried to find them. If she succeeded, then you would have lost. Big-time. I’d call that motive, sir.”

He shifted his thin frame, paying considerable attention to his fingernails. “I think you’re mistaken. I don’t remember this woman.”

I guess I had expected him to fall on his knees and confess. I should have planned this confrontation better, but I was too distracted by what Sally Jean had told me to even make much sense right now. Still, I couldn’t leave without getting something out of this asshole. Maybe if I threw out a line about the judge, he’d squirm.

“You cooperated with a judge named Eugenia Hayes. We believe you made some shady deals with her, threw a few bribes her way. Is that not a fact, sir?”

“I told you I don’t know anything about your murder, nor about bribery. Frankly, I’d categorize your information as flimsy innuendos. I haven’t been in a courtroom in a long time, and I don’t recall anyone named Hayes.”

“Suffering from selective amnesia, sir?”

He got up. “I won’t be insulted in my own home. Obviously you’re grasping at straws.”

I had forgotten he was a lawyer, a “professional liar,” like Judge Hayes said.

“This isn’t the end, Feldman,” I said, knowing this was true, even if everything else I’d said was a lie.

“If you show up again,” Feldman said, “you’d better have more than speculation.”