2 Any Meat In That Soup? (16 page)

I’d soon find out.

TWENTY-TWO

“D
o you want me to call the police?” I asked Dougie when he stopped screaming to take a breath.

Aha! That did it. He calmed down slightly and said, “No, I’ll take care of my truck. You take care of your car.” He started to walk to the driver’s side door, then turned and pointed a finger at me. “You just better mind your own business. Understand?”

I understood all right. He was protecting his mother. Or maybe himself. I was confused as hell.

Carter had other ideas. “See I told you he was guilty.” Carter didn’t even know about the rat poison in the back of his truck.

I had an idea. “Want to check out Holtschlag’s with me?”

He nodded. Getting back into character.

I drove the short distance downtown, parked on the square at Washington Park, and Carter and I crossed the street to the store.

Mr. Holtschlag was behind the counter as usual. He looked up, “May I help…‌? Oh, it’s you.”

“Yes, it’s me and this is my friend, Carter.” They did a mutual nod thing. “I wonder if you have any more of the rat poison that you sold Dr. Johnson the other day.”

He nodded again, and began walking down an aisle. Carter and I followed him. I loved the smell of this place. Old wood. Plus lots of miscellaneous smells you’d find in a Feed and Grain Store. We walked down the aisle, stepping over boxes, dodging mini-columns of whatnot, until we finally arrived at the destination—the storeroom in back.

“Here’s what I have,” the proprietor said, indicating stacks of bags.

I thanked him and then hit myself in the head. The stacks were taller than I, and there were several brands. I turned to Carter, “The bag is yellow and red.”

Carter, like the savant that he is, said, “There they are” right away. He pointed to one of the stacks behind the first row. It towered over us by several feet. I looked at the retreating figure of Mr. Holtschlag and knew he wouldn’t want to help me.

There was no way we could pull out a bag from the middle of the stack, and I couldn’t reach the second row anyway. I turned to Carter, “Look for a ladder or something to climb on.”

After a rudimentary search, we found the ladder in a corner of the storeroom, looking as old as the place itself. It wasn’t a stepladder, it was the kind that had to be leaned up against a wall, but it would do.

Carter apparently had a fear of heights, because he insisted I be the one to climb the ladder. We placed it so it leaned against the first tower of bags. Grateful I’d remembered to wear pants instead of a skirt, I climbed slowly, praying this old ladder would support this old body.

It did. I grabbed the topmost bag from the appropriate row, and was going to hand it down to Carter. As I held it I teetered back and forth, back and forth. There’s something about these damn bags of rat poison that makes back and forth happen. As I teetered backward, self preservation took hold and I dropped the bag as I held on to the ladder with a grip that would rival super-glue.

Unfortunately the bag didn’t fare as well as I did. When it landed, several feet from Carter, it exploded in a burst of powder that filled the air around us. I cussed and I heard Mr. Holtschlag screaming as he ran back toward the storeroom. “Get out of there. Get out of there. That bag has arsenic in it.”

I did something I didn’t think was possible. I jumped off the ladder and beat Carter to the front of the store.

“What?” I said to Holtschlag. “Rat poison doesn’t contain arsenic any more.”

He mopped the beads of perspiration off his forehead with a handkerchief that looked as old as the store and the ladder. “Not in the states. But there are still some countries that use it. I’ve got to sit down.”

Carter and I helped the old guy to a stool behind the counter.

I couldn’t help myself, “Why in the hell would you buy rat poison with arsenic in it?”

“I don’t think I ought to tell you.”

I gave him my big sister glare. It can stop a mortal at twenty paces. He couldn’t help but relent.

“A…‌a…‌customer ordered it,” he stuttered.

“Who,” I demanded.

Again he said, “I don’t think I ought to tell you.”

I moved so that I was even closer to him than Loretta or Dougie would have been. “Tell me.” I waited a beat. “Or I’ll call the cops right now.” I held up my cell phone for good effect.

He looked like he was going to relent. I didn’t let him know that I was going to tell the cops anyway, just not that second.

Holtschlag’s shoulders relaxed. His arm muscles followed suit. He slumped on the stool, and a tear rolled down his well-lined cheek.

“You scare me,” he said.

“Good, because I mean what I say.”

He gulped, righted himself by holding on to the counter, and said, “Dr. Johnson had it special ordered from Haiti.”

“Dougie ordered that whole stack?”

Shaking his head, Holtschlag said, “It was so cheap I thought I’d order more and make a little money.”

“Isn’t it illegal to have arsenic in rat poison in the states?”

“Probably. I don’t know. I didn’t check.” He looked defeated, his eyes downcast, tears now flowing freely. “Don’t let them take my store from me.” He grabbed my arms. “Please.”

He looked pathetic. “I’ll do what I can. But you do know that people died because of that rat poison.”

Panic replaced the tears. “No. I didn’t. I didn’t…‌I didn’t know…‌I swear.”

I had a hard time believing him, because it was all over the news, but it didn’t matter what I thought. He was going to have to face the consequences of his actions. I was confident it wouldn’t be accessory to murder, or anything that huge, but there would certainly be consequences.

Carter stayed with him while I stepped outside to make the phone call. Normally I’d call my brother Rob first with a scoop like this. He was still considered new on the force and I like to help him as much as I can.

But I’d been working on this with George. Besides, he was my guy, and I needed to notify him. I had him on speed dial already, and waited patiently for him to answer. It wasn’t to be. So after listening to a much-too-long message, I told him what I knew about Holtschlag’s and the rat poison, and said that Carter and I were going to confront Dougie. Once again, not thinking things through. I did have the good sense to invite George to join us, but of course I didn’t know exactly where we’d be.

I saw through the window that Mr. Holtschlag seemed to be breathing normally, and I motioned to Carter to come outside. “Let’s go,” I said when he got there, echoing his earlier words.

As we buckled ourselves into my car, I suddenly remembered I needed to tell Michael too, since he was the one who hired me. Before we took off, I called him with the same result as George. I left a similar message.

I entertained a momentary fantasy that they were somewhere together fighting over me, but that wasn’t really what I wanted anymore, and the vision soon vanished. I loved George, and Michael was just a friend. A very handsome friend, but that was it.

“Are you ready for an adventure?” I asked Carter.

He actually smiled.

Then it hit me. Gus had wanted an adventure. I couldn’t do this without him. He was with me the last time I confronted a murderer, and even though it was a fiasco, it did have a happy ending.

“We’re going to pick up someone.”

Carter didn’t respond, so that meant he was back to normal.

The sun was getting close to the Mississippi River, and I realized that it would soon be dusk. I wasn’t frightened because Quincy was a safe town, and besides, I’d have Carter and Gus with me. None of us carried guns. I didn’t like ’em. And I hoped Dougie had the same feeling.

I didn’t bother calling Gus because we were so close to the house. I parked in front and bounded up the stairs to the front porch, or veranda as Georgianne called it. I knocked and rang the bell at the same time. My adrenaline was pumping at full steam and it was hard standing still.

Georgianne answered the door and I didn’t give her a chance to remind me that Gus was ill. I barged right past her and saw Gus sitting in a recliner in the parlor. His recliner was Georgianne’s one concession to normality in the mansion.

“Want to have an adventure?”

Gus bounded out of the recliner and we both almost flew off the porch heading to my car. He did turn to yell back to Georgianne, “I love you.”

Gus wouldn’t fit very well in the backseat, but the back seemed to have been made for Carter. Carter was silent, and I was able to fill Gus in on what we were going to do.

He beamed. “Do you think we’ll need everybody’s help like we did last time, or can we do this one alone?”

I didn’t like the implication. “Of course we can do this alone. No one knows where we’re going, except I left messages for George and Michael. They’ll probably call me and I can tell them we need them or we don’t need them. We’ll see how it goes.”

Unfortunately, my impulsivity was leading us right into danger. And I was too stupid to notice.

TWENTY-THREE

W
ithout a plan we’d be doomed to wander around aimlessly. I pulled over to the curb on Tenth Street, near the hospital. And I turned to my accomplices.

“Anybody got a plan?”

Blankness from Carter and a shoulder shrug from Gus. I’d have to be the one to decide.

“Okay. Dougie is supposed to be working this evening. Let’s make sure he’s here.” I dialed the hospital and keyed in the ER extension. The receptionist answered my question by saying that Dougie called in sick.

“He’s sick, or at least he said he is,” I told them. “So I guess we ought to try his house first. Make sense?”

Two enthusiastic nods told me I was on the right track. I wished George or Michael would call me back. They’d tell me what to do, and they’d let me know if I was making a mistake. They would probably be more than happy to tell me. My stomach was communicating something to me, but I didn’t know what it meant. I just knew we were getting close to the murderer, at least if I believed Carter.

My hunch still told me Loretta was the villain, but Dougie had threatened me twice and he had been the one with the rat poison the last time I checked. Or was it Loretta? Back and forth, back and forth. Damn it! I was getting my dreams mixed up with reality.

It was a short drive to Dougie’s house, just like anywhere else in Quincy. His truck was in the driveway. I parked on the street in front of a neighbor’s house, and told Gus and Carter to stay in the car.

“That’s what you always say,” Gus said.

“And last time you didn’t listen. Please do it this time. Please.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

I coughed as I got out of the car, followed swiftly by Carter coughing too. I leaned back in the car and fished a cough drop out of the glove box. “Carter, if you need one, there’s a few more left in there.”

Then I started walking, but as usual didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know if I should just go up to his door and knock—the straightforward approach—or if I should try to look in a few windows, and check in the backyard.

The last time I tried looking in someone’s window I ended up with a gun brandished in my face. So I decided to go up to the door.

The door was ajar; I took that as an invitation to snoop. I pushed it a few inches more. Just enough for me to get my head through and look without actually going in the house. If caught I’d say that I was getting ready to ring the doorbell. That was as much of a plan as I could muster.

I did just what I had hastily planned—pushed the door with my toe, and kept my hand near the doorbell, just in case. I angled my head around to get a look at as much of the interior as possible, but no luck. Just a house with furniture, “stuff,” and the end of a red and yellow bag sticking out from behind the couch. Bingo!

My phone picked a particularly bad time to whistle, telling me I had a text. I quickly turned off the sound, hoping no one inside had heard the noise. No one inside had. But a voice from behind me said, “Paying a social call?”

Just knowing it was Dougie, I turned and prepared to lie. Michael’s face surprised me. I whispered, “What are you doing here?”

“I got your message and figured you’d be tailing one of the suspects. I found out Loretta was working, so I tried here. And I see suspect number three is in your car. Friends with Callahan?”

I didn’t have time to answer him. Dougie came to the door. He said, “Hmmm. Were you guys going to ring the doorbell or were you going to talk all day on my step?”

I gave him my best phony smile and asked if I could come in.

“That’s not convenient right now. What is it you want?”

I tried again. “I’d rather sit down if it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. Unless you have a search warrant. Oh, I forgot, neither of you are police, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave before I call them and tell them you’re trespassing.”

I hate a smart ass, unless it’s me. “I see the rat poison behind your couch.” He quickly turned to look. I continued, “Michael, will you please call George and let him know we’ve caught Dougie with the murder weapon.”

“No need,” another voice chimed in. George walked up the sidewalk, followed by Gus and Carter.

I immediately told Gus and Carter to get back in the car. I swear Carter coughed out, “You’re not the boss of me.”

Then my stomach spoke to me again. And not kindly. I began coughing and it sounded like Carter and I were playing a duet. I managed to tell George two things: One, that a rat poison bag had exploded at Holtschlag’s and Carter and I inhaled it; and two, that I loved him.

That was when everything faded to black.

TWENTY-FOUR

I
awoke hearing beeps and feeling pinpricks in my arm. I tried to talk but something in my throat would only let me issue guttural sounds.

My sister, Jill, was leaning over me looking into my eyes shining the brightest light I’d ever seen. She must have seen the panic I felt and used her best “doctor voice” to try and calm me.

I pointed to the tube and she nodded and said, “We’ll take it out soon. You vomited a lot and we needed that to stop, so the tube is just going to your stomach. Don’t worry, it’s not a ventilator.”