Prodigal Son (25 page)

The house was quiet that night, although none of them slept well. And Peter made breakfast for the three of them the next day. Lisa didn’t say a word at the table as she played with her cereal and didn’t eat it, avoided their eyes, and left for school. The paper had been on the porch that morning, and Michael’s arrest had made the front page. Peter was worried about Lisa, but she said she wanted to go to school. She said no one would believe those lies about him anyway. She left for school then without saying goodbye.

Shortly after Lisa left, Pru Walker arrived to clean the house, and she looked stunned to see Bill and Peter sitting there. She had already been shocked by the police search two days before, and now this. And the minute she saw Bill, she was even more worried about Maggie.

“How is she?” she asked Peter in a hushed tone. He seemed to be in charge, and gave that impression as he sat at the breakfast table.

“About the same as yesterday. I’m going to see her in a little while. I hope she’s better today.” Pru hoped so too. She had read the newspapers and saw that Michael had been arrested for attempted murder. It had stunned her when she read it, and she didn’t believe it.
It had to be a lie. And she said as much when she put the dishes in the sink.

“Not a man like him,” she muttered, and neither Peter nor Bill answered her. “It must be a mistake.”

Bill went upstairs then. He had some e-mails to answer, and Peter got dressed to leave for the hospital. He had no idea what he’d discover there today, but at least Michael was no longer there. And Peter felt anxious as he walked into Maggie’s room at the hospital half an hour later. He was pleased to find her sitting up in bed. She looked worn out, but she was awake. She seemed noticeably improved, although he knew from the doctor in charge of her case that she wasn’t out of the woods yet. He wanted to tell her about Michael’s arrest, but not before she was strong enough to hear it. The nurse left the room when Peter arrived, and told him to call her when he was ready to leave. The vigilance and tension around Maggie seemed to have relaxed a little, which Peter thought was a hopeful sign.

“Peter, what’s happening?” Maggie asked plaintively with panic in her eyes. Everything they had told her about being poisoned was so confusing. She didn’t understand. And Michael was nowhere to be found. It had been almost twenty-four hours since she’d seen or heard from him. And no one had given her the newspaper that morning, so she had no idea. Peter was relieved they hadn’t. He was very much afraid that her reaction would be as vehement as Lisa’s the night before.

Peter sat down in the chair the nurse had vacated next to Maggie, trying to decide where to begin. For the second time in two days, he knew he was going to break someone’s heart, and tear their life apart. And he knew just from looking at Maggie in her weakened
condition that it was too soon to tell her about Michael. She wasn’t strong enough to hear it yet. One thing at a time.

“They found poison in your system, Maggie,” he said with a look of sorrow in his eyes as he started. “They’re doing everything they can to counter its effects.” The doctors had told her that the night before, so it wasn’t a surprise, although she didn’t fully understand it. No one did just yet. “They don’t know how long it’s been there, or how it got there. Most likely, it was put in your food,” he said solemnly. The doctor from poison control had explained to him that she had probably been given a drop or two regularly on an ongoing basis. More than that would have killed her immediately or within days. As Peter watched her, he saw that her hands were no longer shaking, and he realized that the symptoms of Parkinson’s were less obvious now as she was slowly recovering from the poison.

And one thing was sure, this was no accident. Everyone agreed. Tests were being run now to see if she really had Parkinson’s disease. The toxicologist felt it more likely that the symptoms had been caused by the poison, and not a disease.

Everything that was happening was frightening Maggie, understandably, and she was terrified by Michael’s disappearance. She had been totally dependent on him for years.

“Where is Michael?” she asked insistently again, with wide eyes. She couldn’t face this without him. “Is he handling all this?” And why hadn’t he explained it to her? He was the only doctor she had total faith in. Peter looked away to avoid the questions in her eyes.

“He’s not here,” Peter said vaguely, and Maggie looked even more frightened as she laid her head back on the pillow. He was her protector and savior and had kept her alive for years. She had an even more alarming thought then.

“Was he poisoned too?” Maybe he was sick, or worse. Her eyes flew to Peter’s, and he shook his head.

“The police are doing an investigation of how this happened” was all Peter said. He could see that she was already worn out by his visit.

The doctors had no idea how long it would take to clear the poison from her system, after being poisoned over an extensive period of time on a regular basis. But they agreed with her son. This was not a single event; nor had it occurred only recently. Her neurological symptoms suggested that it had gone on for a long time. They had also asked her about what medications she took regularly, and she didn’t know. She had told them to ask Michael, but that she knew that he gave her sleeping pills and tranquilizers for her nerves, and several different pills, she had no idea what they were. The paraquat and the medications could have kept her bedridden for years and in deteriorating health, and already had. The records from her skating accident were being brought out of the archives to be compared with the symptoms she had now and had been experiencing for years. Few of them were related to her fall, or even the coma afterward, except for her stiff leg, and headaches she had had within the first year and never since.

“Where’s Michael? Why isn’t he here?” she asked again, starting to cry then. She wanted to know. And Peter knew he couldn’t avoid the subject forever.

He didn’t want to tell her yet that Michael had been arrested. She was in no condition to hear that her husband had been trying to kill her, maybe for years. Like Bill, he no longer believed that Michael had only done this since she inherited the money from her father. He had been preparing for this for a long time, destroying her psychologically and physically so he could control her, just as Bill had said,
perhaps intending to kill her once she inherited her father’s money. This had been a long-term plan, Peter felt sure. He was a monster, just as Peter had known when they were young, and as his own son had discovered later. Peter had believed him to be a different person now. He wasn’t. If anything, he was infinitely worse.

Maggie’s breathing became more ragged, as she became agitated asking for Michael, and a nurse came in and put her oxygen mask back on, with a warning look at Peter. It was clear that they weren’t going to be able to tell her about Michael’s arrest today.

She dozed for a little while, and then Bill came in to see her while Peter was still there, sitting quietly in a chair.

Maggie opened her eyes a few minutes after Bill got there.

“Hi, Mom, I love you.” He smiled gently at her.

“I love you too,” she said, choking on a sob, and squeezed his hand. Her grip was stronger. “Have you seen your father?” She echoed her question to Peter. Bill shook his head.

“All you have to do is get better. Why don’t you try and get some sleep now?” She closed her eyes, and Peter and Bill exchanged a look, and then Maggie opened her eyes again.

“I’m so worried about your father,” Maggie said to her son, and then her eyes drifted to Peter. She could tell that they both knew something she didn’t. “Is he hurt?” Maybe he’d been in an accident on the road. No one would tell her.

“You’re going to get better now, Mom,” Bill promised her. And if his father hadn’t done too much damage, that would be true, better than she’d been in years. He had weakened her with bed rest, medications, and their side effects, and brainwashed her into believing she was sick and frail. The drugs alone that he had administered had weakened and confused her for years, along with the psychological
games and fears he instilled in her about infection, accident, and germs that could kill her at any time, and comments about her “bad nerves.” He had shut her away from the world so he could control her, and he had played mind games with his children, inflating Lisa’s role to one of greater responsibility and importance than she should have had at her age, to diminish her mother further, and he had tried to control Bill and never succeeded. He wanted to break him and punish him for his clear vision of his father, and instead Michael had driven him away, which worked for him too, and tried to convince his mother that he was crazy. Maggie hadn’t known what to believe, but looking into Bill’s eyes now, she could see the strong, healthy man he was.

“Are you staying?” she asked hopefully.

“For a while.” He had sent an e-mail to school that day saying that a family emergency had called him home for several weeks. He had requested that his assignments be sent to him electronically. It was the best he could do, but he was prepared to drop out for the semester if he had to. His mother was more important than anything else in his world, and he had no idea how long it would take now to restore her. No one did.

Maggie remained agitated whenever she talked to Bill and Peter about Michael, and finally she seemed to wear herself out and settle down. They both felt guilty for being dishonest with her, and their excuses for Michael’s absence were thin. Peter finally told her Michael was home with Lisa, and Maggie accepted that with a peaceful look. She wasn’t clear on how long it had been since she had seen him. They had claimed an emergency for him earlier that day—a patient who had had a stroke, and he needed to be with him. Maggie had accepted that as well. Peter had no idea when she would be
strong enough for them to tell her that Michael was under investigation, in custody at the jail, and about to be arraigned on charges of attempted murder.

It was late afternoon when Bill and Peter were able to leave her. She had finally fallen into a deep sleep, holding her son’s hand. They knew they had a hard night ahead of them with Lisa, and Jack Nelson had called to say that reporters were buzzing around the police station like flies, and were likely to turn up at the house.

The chief of police called Peter on his cell phone as they left the parking lot.

“I want to speak to you and your nephew tomorrow,” he said sternly. He hadn’t had a case that upset him this much in years. Michael was someone he would have trusted with his life. He was still hoping that it was some kind of mistake, maybe an accidental poisoning of some kind. Everyone in town knew how much Michael loved his wife. They had evidence of it for years. He had been totally dedicated to Maggie.

Twice in his career, Jack had dealt with crimes of passion. One of them had been a friend who found his wife in bed with someone else, and he had shot them both and then himself. It had been terrible, and Jack had been first on the crime scene. He had been a young policeman then and had answered the call when a neighbor heard the gunshots. Jack had cried afterward. But if this was true, it upset him even more, because he and Michael were so close. This was attempted murder, premeditated, with malice aforethought, the work of a dangerously sick mind. He was praying for some other explanation, but there was none so far.

Jack Nelson stood outside Michael’s cell at the police department before he turned the key and let himself in. They had a few holding cells in Ware, and Jack was keeping him there intentionally instead of transferring him to the house of corrections in Northampton. He’d have to move him there for the arraignment. But he kept him in Ware for a few days, so he could discuss the matter further with Michael. He wanted to do all he could to help him. This had to be some kind of terrible mistake.

Jack needed to talk to Michael without drawing attention to either of them. He had helped himself to the keys to Michael’s cell during lunch. Michael was sitting on his bunk, looking unaffected, and smiled when he saw his old friend. Jack looked far more distressed than he did. Michael was astonishingly calm and undisturbed despite the depressing surroundings. The jail cells at the station were old and grim, and there was a toilet next to the bed.

“Thanks for the visit,” he said to Jack, as though he had dropped by his office for a chat, which Jack often did when he drove by. And
other times they met at the diner for lunch or dinner, on one of the rare occasions Michael went out for a meal. He usually stayed home with Maggie every night.

“This is pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?” Michael said with a rueful smile, making room for Jack on the bunk.

“I hope so,” Jack said, looking miserable. He seemed in considerably worse spirits than Michael. He had been awake all night, thinking about it, trying to find a rational explanation for the two reports. “Christ, I hope so,” Jack answered. “What do you think happened? This is off the record,” he reassured him, and then felt he owed him a warning, “but if you did it, tell your lawyer, don’t tell me.”

“I don’t have one. And I didn’t do it. I don’t know what the hell happened. Maybe a mistake at the lab. Some crazy chemical circumstance that mimics something else. Maggie’s on a lot of medications. Sometimes things work together and make strange composites and reactions. The only thing I know for sure is that I didn’t poison her. I love her,” Michael said innocently, as Jack patted his shoulder. He hated what was happening, and wished he could change it for him. Michael didn’t deserve to be in jail. He was a great guy. He had spent an entire life helping people, and Jack just knew that Michael wouldn’t try to kill his wife. But he offered no explanation for the weed killer they had found in his garden shed and the fact that his fingerprints were on it. That was a tough one to explain away. Jack looked deeply concerned. And then Michael suddenly looked up, as if he had a dark thought he hated even to put words to. “Maybe my brother tried to frame me. He’s my brother, but he was rotten as a kid. I thought he’d straightened up when he came back here. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe that’s why he showed up, to get even with me about
my parents’ wills and what they gave me. Or maybe he came back for Maggie.” Michael looked sad and disappointed as he said it. “He’s always been in love with her.”