Address to Die For (26 page)

“What happened? Were you selling drugs at the school?”

“Not at school. Not to kids,” Flora explained. “Oh, God. I can't believe this happened. My mom has Alzheimer's. After my divorce, she took care of Jennifer during the day and later after school, so I could start my business. She moved in with us so we could save on expenses. I bought the house. But then Mom had trouble looking after Jennifer. For awhile, they looked after each other, but Jennifer was getting more involved in after-school activities and evening dance classes. Mom was on her own more and things fell apart.”

I pulled a stack of napkins from the holder on the table and handed them to her. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. I felt dizzy and confused, but I wasn't sure whether it was because of the drugs Flora had put in my coffee, or because I couldn't wrap my head around the situation. Flora as a murderer? Flora was the last person I would have suspected.

“It wasn't safe for Mom to be alone during the day when I was working. Jennifer was in school during the day and in dance classes at night. We moved Mom to assisted living and, for a while, everything was fine. Money was tight, but my business was doing well.”

“And then?” I prompted.

“I'm not sure how it started. I grew cannabis for Mom when she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer ten years ago. It helped her so much that she told friends in her support group about it and they came to me too. I wanted to help them feel better so they'd stick with their treatment regimens. So many people give up because they can't stand the side effects.”

Flora stopped, took a big gulp of coffee, and coughed. “I didn't want this, Maggie. I only wanted to help people.”

I heard a
thump
from upstairs. Brian must be up. I prayed he wouldn't come down. If Flora had murdered Miss Harrier to stop her from telling the police about the drug sales, what would she do to me and to Brian to stop us from telling the police she'd confessed to murder?

I patted Flora's hand. “But something changed?”

She sniffed and nodded. “More people found out that I was growing it and wanted me to bend the rules for them. I was growing more, but we had plenty of room in the basement of our old house. I used the same setup that I'd once used to grow flower seedlings to plant in the spring.”

Flora rested her elbow on the table and leaned her head against her palm. “These folks are desperate, Maggie. It's horrible what chemo does to them. And some people around here have a lot of money. One man offered to pay me two thousand dollars a week if I could supply his wife with enough pot to help her eat without vomiting.”

She balled a napkin up in her hand. “At first, I limited my sales to those with medical-marijuana cards. I didn't have a license to sell, but it was so much easier for them to buy from me than to drive to one of the dispensaries in the city. Even if the cards looked bogus, I figured I could say I'd been fooled into thinking they were real, and that I was in the process of applying for a permit. But then Jennifer announced she wanted to go to college, to a conservatory back east, to study classical dance. And the home Mom is in said she'd have to move to a memory-care unit with skilled nursing. In the space of a week, my budget went from manageable to completely out of reach.”

Flora looked up, wringing the napkin with her hands. “What could I do, Maggie? I had to take care of Jennifer and Mom. I had to. I was keeping the store open as many hours as I could. We'd pinched every penny and economized in every way possible. All three of us had been doing that for years. I mentioned my troubles to Dennis after a PTA meeting, and he suggested I talk to Umberto about a short-term loan.”

“Did Umberto help you?” I asked. “I'd heard he was all business.”

Flora sneered. “You could say that. He was nice and comforting and wrote me a check as soon as I asked, but a week later, he made it clear that there were strings attached.” Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “He threatened Jennifer and my mom. Nothing overt, but he made it clear that Jennifer or Mom might have a serious accident if I didn't do as he asked. He wanted me to double my production and do more direct sales.”

Flora shuddered. “He had this way of talking as if he were referring to massage oils, lavender, and herbal tea, but we both knew exactly what he meant.”

“So you branched out?”

“Yes. I sold to kids from the high schools and at Stanford. Word got around. I could spot them easily—people who came into the shop looking over their shoulders and spent way too long looking at products I knew they couldn't use. My underground business doubled in less than two months, and I started saving for Jennifer's college and paying my mom's bills. Overnight, my money problems disappeared.”

“But Umberto kept pressing?” I guessed.

Flora was watching me closely, so I was afraid to reach for my phone to call 9-1-1. I considered running for the door, but was afraid that would create a disruption that would bring Brian downstairs. And the last thing I wanted was to have Brian anywhere near a desperate woman who had killed at least one person. I didn't want her to think about the risks she was taking confessing to me. I had to keep her talking.

“Go on,” I said.

“He wanted a little more each week. That's what he was asking about when we saw him in the alley. It was always a stretch to make up his order. But he made it clear there'd be consequences if I didn't.” Flora's eyes roamed the room like those of a trapped and frightened animal.

“I never sold to the middle-school kids,” Flora said. “
Never.
He wanted me to, but I didn't.”

“But what happened with Miss Harrier?”

“She overheard kids saying they knew where they could get some weed and they mentioned my name. She confronted me and said she was going to call the police. I knew all hell would break loose with Umberto if she did that. I wanted to talk to her, Maggie. To convince her to give me another chance. To make her understand that I'd never sold to the younger kids and never would. I had no idea she was taking tranquilizers. Or that she had asthma. She was such a private person.”

Flora gazed at me with a look that I interpreted as a plea for me to believe her story and to understand that her actions were unavoidable.

I nodded in what I hoped was an encouraging and supportive way.

“The doctor at the care home had prescribed benzodiazepine for Mom. Her memory loss terrified her and was making her frantic. I thought the pills would make Miss Harrier less worried about the pot too. So I ground up the pills in coffee I'd spiked with coffee liqueur and sugar. She liked really sweet coffee, did you know that?”

I shook my head. “You didn't worry that there could be complications? You're an herbalist. Aren't you trained to look for interactions between medications like pharmacists are?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Flora scowled. Her skin, her expression, and her entire demeanor took a dark turn.

“One of the joys of herbal medicine is that treatments don't have the side effects and complications that Western medicines do,” she said.

I doubted the truth of her statement. Even water can kill someone if they ingest too much. But I apologized quickly, hoping she'd calm down. I couldn't follow her logic, though. Even if herbal medicine
didn't
have side effects, Flora had given Miss Harrier benzodiazepine, which no one would consider a natural product.

“Of course you're right, Flora. I'm sorry. Please go on.”

“I took her cookies that I'd doctored too.”

Flora was now shredding the napkins instead of balling them up in her hands. “I looked benzodiazepine up on the Internet after Harrier was found dead—after I learned she had asthma. Overdosing is really rare, and I was sure that someone had snuck in afterward and killed her. I truly hadn't meant to kill her, just change her mind. But between the medication she was taking, her asthma, the alcohol, and the pills in the coffee and cookies—I gave her way too much. She got really dizzy and nauseated, and stood up, saying she needed the restroom. She started to fall, and I tried to grab her, but the desk was in the way. Her head hit the corner of the filing cabinet with the most horrible sound.”

Flora pointed to the side of her own head. “You know how head wounds are, Maggie. They bleed like crazy. There was blood everywhere. I panicked and ran. What if I'd been arrested? What would happen to Jennifer and my mom? They need me, Maggie. I can't go to jail.”

“But what if you'd called an ambulance right away?” I asked the question as gently as I could. “Miss Harrier might still be alive.”

I heard sirens in the distance and hoped they were headed straight to my house. Maybe Brian had overheard part of the conversation and called the police.

“And the fire?” I said, thinking that arson went way beyond the vandalism Dante had confessed to. I didn't want to believe Flora would do that, but I had to know. “Did you break our windows and burn our barn?”

Flora hung her head. “I hoped you would think it was too dangerous to stay here or continue investigating. I didn't want to hurt anyone. The insurance company will replace your barn.”

“But that smoke bomb did a number on Brian's lungs, Flora. You endangered my son. You terrified all of us.” I was angry now. Angry at the way that Flora had tried to manipulate every situation to suit her family and herself, without considering the impact on anyone else. Her problems had overwhelmed her, but I was sure there was help out there for people like Flora, if only she'd asked. She was wallowing in self-pity and blaming others, but the truth was, she could have turned the situation around at a number of key junctures if only she'd trusted someone other than Umberto with her story.

“Did you kill Mr. Hernandez too? What did
he
have to do with all of this?”

Flora pulled a floppy, quilted handbag from the floor and rummaged in its daffodil-printed depths. I pushed my chair back when she pulled out a gun and laid it on the table between us. It was a real gun. No orange tip. No purple-glitter polka dots.

The sirens grew louder.

Flora shook her head. “I can't let them in here, Maggie. I can't let them arrest me.”

I put my hand over Flora's. “It's going to be okay, Flora. They'll understand. Tell them what you've told me.”

It was an odd thing to say, I thought, as I listened to the words fall from my mouth as if they were coming from the mind of someone else. But I meant every word. Amid my anger and my terror for myself and my kids, I understood Flora's desperation. I didn't understand the solution she'd come to and didn't approve of her decision, but I understood the stress she'd been under, trying to care for her family alone when she'd previously been able to rely on her mother for help. I understood the knife-edge she'd balanced her life upon, and how any change could have made her feel trapped in an unmanageable situation.

I pushed the gun out of Flora's reach and took both her hands in mine. She held on as one might hold the railing on a storm-tossed ship, and I grasped hers almost as tightly. I wasn't sure what might happen if either one of us let go. And, while I was somewhat sympathetic, I was also practical. This woman's emotions were all over the place. She'd proved she was desperate and making terrible decisions. I had no idea what she was capable of or what she'd do next. I needed to keep her calm and holding onto her hands to prevent her from doing any more damage couldn't hurt.

“It's too late, Maggie,” Flora said. “I've poisoned us both.”

My mouth went dry and my chest tightened. “Poison?”

Flora nodded. “No pain. We'll just drift off to sleep and be done.”

Oh, God. What would happen to Brian and David? And Max. I would never see him again. Never have a chance to watch the boys graduate and pursue their dreams. I listened as the sirens grew louder and then cut off as the emergency vehicles turned into the driveway and pulled to a stop at the side of the house in what must have looked like a reenactment of the activities on the day we'd moved in. I heard boots clomping up the back-porch steps and Jason pushed the door open slightly. I nodded to him and he lifted his eyebrows in an unspoken question. I nodded again, and he came into the room with his pistol drawn.

I shifted my gaze to the gun on the table. Jason holstered his weapon, shoved the plate of cookies aside, and picked up Flora's gun using one of the napkins she'd left unshredded.

The cookies. Flora said she'd ground pills into the cookies she'd made for Miss Harrier. Could she have done the same to this new batch? Or the batch she'd given me earlier? The ones I'd taken to the DeSotos' house and Diego had eaten?

“Jason,” I said, with my mouth feeling as though I'd been shot full of numbing solution at the dentist. “The cookies. Diego. Poison. Call Lizbef.”

Even professional organizers have days when they can't organize their own thoughts, let alone anything else.

 

 

 

 

S
everal hours later, after the paramedics and a stellar emergency-room team had stitched up my head and put me through an unpleasant series of treatments to clear the tranquilizers from my system, Jason drove me home and filled me in on what I'd missed.

“Brian called in the cavalry,” he said. “He heard Flora's car and looked out the window, expecting to see you. When you didn't answer and he heard her fiddling with the door and talking to herself, he suspected something was wrong.”

“Is Brian okay? What about Diego? He ate Flora's cookies.”

“Brian's fine. Diego was on the way to the doctor to get his eye looked at when he began vomiting in the car. You told us about the drugged cookies before you passed out—or gave us enough clues, anyway. The police phoned both Elisabeth and Dennis, and Diego was treated immediately. He'll be fine.”

“And David? He got home okay?”

“Stephen phoned Tess. She picked David up from band practice. Her son Teddy and your two boys are at your house wearing out the buttons on your video-game controllers.”

“What will happen to Flora and her family? She was so worried about her daughter and her mom.”

“Her daughter is with Flora's ex-husband. He's determined to work things out for Jennifer, Flora's mom, and Flora, for that matter.” Jason tapped the steering wheel with his fingers. “We're going to do everything we can, under the circumstances. Her mother's doctor has been watching her condition carefully and thinks she may have been given medicines to make her more confused than her condition warranted. We're working to prove that Umberto had a hand in that, and was coercing Flora into some of the actions she took. Flora's helping us with the case against Umberto.”

I fell silent, unable to voice any of my other questions and worries. What Flora had done was unconscionable, but I could sympathize with her struggles.

“Do you have enough to arrest Umberto?” I asked.

Jason frowned and accelerated. “I think so, to arrest him, anyway. After that it's in the hands of the district attorney.” He shook his head. “Umberto's a slippery bastard.”

I thought that
bastard
was too mild a term for a man like Umberto.