Dead Man Talking

  Chapter 13

  Trucker by my side, I handed the gate opener to Katy in the kitchen. When she started to push a button, I shook my head. “Wait until we hear someone at the gate.”

  “Oh." She laid the transmitter on the table.

  I sniffed and smelled coffee. New alarm spread through me and I glared at Katy.

  “It was a sealed pack I found in the pantry,” she defended herself. “Unopened. I checked the package, and it hadn’t been tampered with.”

  “What about the coffeepot?”

  Katy stared across the kitchen, then rushed over and unplugged the coffeepot. Reaching beneath the sink, she pulled out a jug of bleach. I didn’t caution her about destroying evidence. By then, I longed for a caffeine jolt myself.

  In the Garden Room, Sue Ann knelt in front of Gabe, and I went in to check on him. “How is he, Sue Ann?”

  Gabe puked all down the front of Sue Ann’s dress. Grimacing, she jerked her apron off and mopped at the mess. “Guess he didn’t get it all out in the garden. Where’s the ambulance?”

  “On the way." I steadied Gabe when he wobbled. “Let’s lay him down.”

  Gabe gagged again as Sue Ann and I scooted him onto the floor and gazed up with bleary eyes. “Thankee.”

  “So you can talk?” I offered on a half-humorous note.

  “When I need to,” he agreed.

  “Did you see Officer O’Neil anywhere?”

  “Didn’t have time to look.”

  “We need to find him and get him pukin’ pretty quick, too,” Sue Ann put in. “Ain’t no tellin’ what this stuff is.”

  Sir Gary blinked into the room, stared at Sue Ann and Gabe, and blinked out. He reappeared out in the Rose Garden, motioning frantically at me.

  “Alice, I’m opening the gate,” Katy called. “Jack’s here.”

  “Tell him I’m in the Rose Garden!”

  “No!” she yelled.

  But I was already out the door, Trucker by my side. We hurried to Sir Gary, and the ghost motioned us toward the maze. “Not that I care that much about bobbies,” he said as he floated ahead of me, “but he’s in fairly bad shape.”

  “He’s in the maze?”

  “Perhaps he stumbled in there unaware where he was going. Confused by the poison in his system.”

  Sir Gary led us in, then left and right through several more turns until I figured I’d need Trucker or him to lead me back out. It had been years since I’d been in the maze, and I doubted very much that I could recall its intricacies. Someone groaned ahead of us, near what I thought was the center of the hedges. I rounded a corner and a blue-uniformed officer lay on the ground. As I raced to his side, he curled into a fetal ball, clutching his stomach.

  “Officer O’Neil?” I asked stupidly. Names didn’t matter right now.

  “Hurts,” he gasped. “What’s wrong?”

  “Have you vomited?" He groaned, and I shook his shoulder and repeated the question.

  “No,” he finally answered.

  “Do it!” I demanded. “Don’t hold back. There was something in the pudding.”

  O’Neil heaved upright. He only made it to his hands and knees, and I steadied him by his shoulders as he weaved back and forth. “Vomit!” I ordered.

  He gagged, but nothing came up. He clutched his stomach with one hand and I shook him more violently. “You have to get that stuff out of your stomach!”

  O’Neil went limp and fell to the ground again. His eyes fluttered, and I grabbed him by the shirt front. “Up! You have to get that stuff out of your stomach!”

  He made it to his hands and knees again, head hanging between his elbows. Nothing else for it. I stuck my finger in his mouth, down his throat. Pulled my hand back an instant before his stomach contents erupted. I held him while he gagged and shook and shuddered. Beside us, Trucker whined, and I glanced over to see him gazing down the path we’d just come up. And heard the shout at the same moment. “Alice! Damn it, where are you?”

  “Go get Jack,” I ordered Trucker, and he took off. I looked around for Sir Gary, but O’Neil shuddered and collapsed again. He was a big man, but I managed to drag him aside, away from the pool of vomit. Then I saw Sir Gary a few feet away, a sickly look on his face.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, half-listening to the voice still calling and Trucker yapping.

  “I...ah...don’t handle sickness very well,” Sir Gary replied. “I’m going now. The other bobbies are here." He disappeared, and sure enough, Trucker led Jack and a paramedic up. The paramedic knelt by O’Neil, and I stumbled into Jack’s arms. Damn, they felt good just then.

  He held me close, then pushed me away to look at me. “Are you all right, Chére?”

  Given a sympathetic ear, all my aches and pains hit me at once. Tears clouded, and no matter how hard I tried to hold them back, a couple spilled down my cheeks. My hands burned from sliding on the brick floor. My knee and thigh hurt from falling over the kitchen chair. And tension knotted my back muscles so tightly my lower back ached. I nodded, though I could tell Jack didn’t believe me. He pulled me back into his arms, and I snuggled willingly while he talked to the paramedic.

  “How’s O’Neil?”

  “Sick,” the paramedic answered. “I can’t do much until we know what he ingested.”

  “I better go get someone with a stretcher,” Jack said.

  The paramedic glanced up. “Yeah, and a guide to get us out of here.”

  “I’ll come back with the dog,” Jack told him. His arm comfortingly around me, Jack started down the path, then halted and turned to the medic. “I don’t like leaving you alone.”

  “Leave Trucker,” I said. “I think I can remember how to get out of here.”

  Jack nodded, and I clicked my fingers to get Trucker’s attention. “Stay, boy." He marched over and sat down by the medic. From the medic’s face, I wondered if he wasn’t more uneasy about the huge dog than he would have been alone.

  Despite my insistence that I could find my way, I hesitated at one intersection. Noticing my confusion, Jack pulled a flashlight from the holder on his gunbelt and shone it on the ground. “That way,” he said, pointing to some trampled grass. A few seconds later, we emerged.

  “I’m all right now, Jack,” I said. “Go get your stretcher.”

  “Not 'til I get you in the house,” he said grimly.

  Obediently, I walked beside him, my arm securely around his waist as I darted my gaze around. At the Garden Room door, Jack gently shoved me inside. Before he left, he said, “Have Katy look at your hands and put some salve on them.”

  I only then realized I’d been cradling my right hand against my stomach, curled inward to protect the deep scratches. Both hands had skin seared off on the palms, more deeply on my right, which took the brunt of my weight.

  “One, two, three,” I heard behind me. Another medic and Sue Ann lifted Gabe onto a stretcher, and the medic rolled Gabe out, Sue Ann behind them. In the kitchen, Katy held a cup of coffee out to me.

  “Do you have a first-aid kit first?” I asked, extending my palms.

  “Good heavens, Alice,” she said. “What happened?”

  She thrust the coffee cup onto the counter and opened a cupboard door as I answered, “I fell over the chair. Trying to keep Miss Molly out of the bread pudding. But Trucker got there first. Where is Miss Molly?”

  Katy pulled a first-aid kit from a cupboard. “Curled in a basket of towels in the laundry room." She urged me into a chair at the table. “I remembered that you said she always loved to curl in your laundry baskets at home.”

  “Thanks for taking care of her.”

  “She’s a beautiful cat. Even if she isn’t declawed." She opened the first-aid kit and continued as she tended my palms, “I’m going to call a friend in New Orleans and ask him to recommend a guard company.”

  “Probably a good idea,” I agreed. Much as I hated the thought of living in an armed camp, the fact that someone had slipped in here and poisoned the food gave me
chills. And I couldn’t seem to keep my blasted mind from wandering into areas that should be off-limits except when working on a book. “Katy, how long has Sue Ann been with you?”

  Katy’s stared at my face. “Why, you know. I hired her when I first moved in. You met her on one of your visits.”

  “Didn’t you have another housekeeper at some point?”

  “About six months ago. Sue Ann said she needed some time off. I held her job, and she sent a relative to help out until she came back." Katy gripped my hand so tightly, I pulled it free in pain. “You don’t think — ?”

  “Oh, probably not,” I said dismissively. “Surely she wouldn’t have served the pudding to her own husband.”

  “Well . . .” Katy mused. “The other day they had a huge argument in the Rose Garden. I asked Sue Ann about it, and she said Gabe wanted to dig up the rhododendron bushes in the back corner. That they were too much trouble to take care of in this climate.”

  “Sounds like a silly thing to fight over.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said from the Garden Room doorway. “To me, too." He strode over, Trucker padding behind him, and glanced at the pink-tinged water on the table. “You in pain?”

  “Not that much,” I denied, lying to him and me.

  Katy squeezed a glob of salve onto her finger. As she rubbed the soothing ointment over my right hand, she said, “Rhododendrons are a branch of the oleander family. Toxic.”

  Jack jerked his cell phone out and dialed. “When the ambulance gets to the hospital with Gabe Purdy and O’Neil, there’ll be some bagged samples with them. Have the lab check for toxicity similar to oleander.”

  After he disconnected, I said, “I can’t believe Sue Ann would do this. I really don’t know her, and never met Gabe until tonight. But she was horribly concerned about Gabe. I don’t think it was all an act.”

  “Maybe not,” he agreed. “But someone’s running around out there, and he...or maybe she, killed Bucky. And made an attempt on the rest of you.”

  Hands still on mine, Katy caught her breath. “You’ve identified the body?”

  “The senator identified a couple scars. Appendix operation, bite mark from a 'gator.”

  “An alligator bit him?” I asked.

  “He’s been known to do some poaching,” Katy said as she tidied up the first-aid kit.

  I frowned, but didn’t ask Katy how many of Bucky’s activities she’d kept apprised of. Not with Jack standing there. Jack hadn’t missed the comment, though. I caught his body language. But, surprising me, he didn’t mention that.

  “I heard you say you were gonna check on a security company,” he said to Katy. “I’ve got a friend in New Orleans who runs a top-notch one. I’ll have him get some men out here first thing in the mornin’.”

  Again I stifled my tongue. We’d mentioned that guard company a few moments before I’d realized Jack was at the doorway. He’d obviously been listening a while before he made his presence known. Trying to see if Katy and I would let something slip pertaining to the murder? The thought reinforced my need to get Katy alone...and find her an attorney.

  “Thanks, Jack,” Katy said, unaware of Jack’s investigative interest. “Tell him price is no object. I want professionals.”

  “That they’ll be. 'Til then, I’m staying here tonight.”

  My stomach growled, relieved somewhat of its stress and reminding me that it hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch. Well, a late lunch, but my belly was already grumpy again. “I don’t suppose there’s a pizza delivery service anywhere near?”

  Jack replied, “Closest thing open this time of night 'round here is a gas station on the freeway.”

  My stomach growled more insistently, disappointed in that news. Then I remembered Granny’s pie. “I’ll be right back." I walked out of the kitchen, Jack right behind me. Katy, too. In the hallway, I quirked a questioning eyebrow.

  “I don’t want you roamin’ 'round alone,” Jack explained.

  “And I’m not staying alone, either,” Katy put in.

  The three of us continued into the library, where I flung my briefcase open. Then I tossed aside the manila folders in a voila motion. There in what I knew was all its sugary glory beneath the aluminum foil was Granny’s pecan pie, which I’d stuck in there and forgotten about. Triumphantly, I lifted it out, mouth already watering.

  “You didn’t have that briefcase locked,” Jack said. “Somebody could’ve gotten to that pie. Tampered with it.”

  Frustration seized me — and didn’t do a damn thing to quell the rumbles in my belly. “No one else knew the pie was there.”

  “You sure enough about that to risk eatin’ it?” Jack asked.

  I pulled back the foil and stared at the pie — each individual pecan half-submerged in the rich, luscious filling. Flaky crust, browned just right. All Granny’s crusts were made from scratch, and she brushed egg whites around the edges to turn them so crisply brown.

  I thrust the pie at Jack. “I’m hungry,” I said somewhat petulantly. Well, pretty damned petulantly. “Katy at least got some gumbo this evening. That should mean it’s safe. Gabe ate some of that, too. It was the pudding that was tampered with.”

  “I’ve got some things in the freezer,” Katy offered.

  “No,” Jack said firmly. “I don’t want anybody eatin’ anything in this house. Soon as my men get through combin’ the grounds, I’ll drive you both down to the gas station, and you can pick up enough stuff to get you by 'til tomorrow. I’ll want the men to check here in the house, also, so we can leave while they do that.”

  “Well, we can at least have some coffee." Katy led the way back to the kitchen. “I cleaned the pot with bleach, and besides, I’ve already had a cup.”

  “Could’ve been some evidence in that coffeepot,” Jack said under his breath. I tossed him a grim look, though, and he shrugged. “Guess I could use a cup, too.”

  He laid the pie on the counter as Katy got another coffee cup from the cupboard. She dumped some bleach into it and rinsed it out before she poured Jack a cup. Then dumped the cold cup she’d offered me down the drain and poured each of us a fresh one. I hate black coffee, but I sipped this. I wasn’t about to use any of the cream in the refrigerator. I caught Jack staring at me. “What?”

  “You were in the maze when I got here.”

  “So?” I asked, although I knew immediately where he was going.

  “How’d you know my officer was in there — clear in the middle of that place?”

  I swallowed more coffee, a ploy for time that Jack recognized. For a slim second, I considered telling him the truth — Sir Gary had found the sick officer. At some point, we had to discuss the ghosts, but I preferred to get Jack alone first. His reaction wasn’t going to be kind to either Katy or me. Better yet, having Twila here would be the best bet.

  “Trucker,” I murmured, letting Jack make his own call, assume the dog had led me.