“What do you mean?” Sid asked.
“I think I’ve been had.” His lips compressed, and he shifted in his seat. “Yeah, I’m sure of it.”
The man was trembling as he leaned up on the table and slapped his hand on it. “Monday, the day before I’m released, I’m sittin’ there mindin’ my own business, when I’m told the chaplain wants to see me. So I go down to the chapel, and she tells me that some priest dropped a letter by for her to give me. And guess who it’s from?”
Now they were getting somewhere, Sid thought, bracing himself. “Who?”
“Celia Shepherd.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I’ve got it right here. You’ll see.” He reached into the billfold and retrieved the folded letter. His hands continued to tremble as he unfolded it. “Oh, man. It was all too good to be true. There I was thinkin’ that maybe she was unhappily married and had been thinkin’ about me. I had this fantasy of my comin’ here and her wantin’ to resume things after all these years…Rich little Celia Bradford…”
He pushed the computer printed letter across the table, and Sid read it. His heart plummeted. That knot in his stomach tightened. He handed the letter to Vern.
Barnett’s face was getting redder, and through his teeth, he said, “Man, she lured me here so I’d look like the suspicious one, so I’d take the heat. What is my life worth, right? Just pin me with it, and she gets off scot-free. Man, I didn’t do it. I ain’t even heard from her in years. Not a word. And then this.”
Sid looked up, not sure if he was being conned. “Where’s the check mentioned in the letter?”
“I cashed it, man. It was right where the priest said it was. In the locker at the bus station. Right combination, everything.”
“And this priest. Who was he?”
“You know as much as I do. The letter’s signed ‘Father Edmund Mueller.’ Must be at one of the Catholic churches here, I guess. I never saw the guy.”
Sid ran the facts through his mind. Lee Barnett had been too quick to turn this back on Celia. Was it fact, or was the truth somewhere between what he’d thought and what Barnett was telling him? Maybe Barnett wasn’t the killer, but he wasn’t the innocent saint, either.
“You mentioned your fantasy about Celia resumin’ things. You knew she was married. Was you plannin’ to have an affair with her?”
Barnett turned his palms up. “Hey, I figured I’d take her any way I could get her. I ain’t exactly in the position to make moral judgments after where I’ve been. But I didn’t see her. I just took the bait and came, and I ain’t heard from her yet. I couldn’t figure out why she’d want me here, in Newpointe, unless she wanted to start somethin’ up with me. But now I gotta say, I think it was because she’d been plannin’ this. Probably waited till my time was up. She wanted me to be here, so it would look like I blew into town to poison him. I don’t believe it! What did I ever do to her to deserve this?”
A while later, Sid left the interrogation room and went to do as much checking as he could to verify the things Barnett had said. The letter was typed and could have been written by anyone trying to set Celia up, but the personal check was a little more difficult to explain. He found LaTonya Mason and got her to try to get a copy of the check from the bank, while he called Marabeth Simmons to find out who came in to rent the apartment.
“Paula Bouchillon, the owner, done it all by phone on my day off,” she said. “She told me she talked to Mr. Barnett on the phone two weeks ago and that he mailed the deposit in and said he’d come by when he got here and sign the lease, which he did.”
That wasn’t likely, Sid thought. Two weeks ago, Lee Barnett was in jail. “Tell me about the deposit. Did he send cash, a money order, what?”
“A check, I think,” she said. “Let’s see. I ain’t deposited it yet. No, it’s right here, with a copy of the lease.”
Sid’s heartbeat accelerated. “Whose name is on that check, Marabeth?”
He heard papers rustling, then she whispered, “Oh, glory be! You’re not gon’ believe this, Sid. Oh, my. Wait till I tell Sue Ellen. Even Simone won’t believe this.”
“What?” Sid asked. “Marabeth!”
“The check, Sid, is on Stan and Celia Shepherd’s account. I can’t believe I didn’t see that before, but Paula give it to me to deposit just today, and I never looked at it. What does this mean, Sid? It’s somethin’ to do with the poisonin’, ain’t it?”
Sid wiped the perspiration on his forehead and was careful not to answer her question. “Look, I’m fixin’ to send an officer over right away to pick up that check. Do me a favor and put it in an envelope, and give it to the officer, okay?”
“All right, but…Will we get it back?”
“I’m not sure, ma’am. But that check could be important evidence. We’ve got to have it.”
He hung up the phone before she could ask anything else and called the dispatcher, knowing that she, too, was a live wire on the Newpointe gossip lines. “Simone, I need for the officer who’s closest to the Bonaparte Court apartments to go by the office there and get an envelope for me from Marabeth. I need it ASAP.”
While he held, she dispatched an officer to do what she’d been told, then she came back to the phone. “Sid, what’s going on? Is this about Stan?”
“Just part of the investigation, Simone. When we solve the case, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Do you still suspect Celia?”
“Bye, Simone.” He hung up, and dropped his face into his hands. What was going on? Had Celia faked a man’s voice to secure the apartment, or more likely, had Lee Barnett had access to a phone somewhere in the prison? They were allowed to make phone calls from time to time, he knew. It was, at least, possible. If he and Celia had something going, maybe he had made the call, and she had sent the check. The average person couldn’t fake a bank account. At least, not from prison.
It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes before T.J. Porter came in brandishing the envelope. “This what you needed, Sid?”
“Yeah, thanks.” He opened it and pulled out the check. Just as she’d said, it bore the names “Stan or Celia Shepherd.” In the right bottom corner was Celia’s signature. He rubbed his eyes, wishing from his heart that it wasn’t so.
“What’s going on?” T.J. asked.
“Just more pieces to the puzzle.”
“What puzzle?”
“The puzzle of Celia Shepherd. Who is she, T.J.? What is she?”
“I heard you’d brought somebody new in for questioning. Find out anything?”
Sid took in a deep breath. “I’m not sure yet,” he said. “He wants us to think he’s a Boy Scout who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I don’t think so.”
“What do you think?”
“I think he’s a possible suspect…but more likely, he’s Celia Shepherd’s motive.”
Chapter Twenty
The police chief was livid when he saw the check with Celia’s signature. “I can’t believe this!” Jim Shoemaker said. “All this time, I was thinking we’d made a mistake. That any minute now we’d turn up evidence that would exonerate her. But it gets smellier and smellier. A boyfriend, that check, her past…It all adds up to Celia Shepherd being a killer.” He slammed the side of his fist into a file cabinet with a clash, then swung around. “Look, I don’t want us dragging our feet on this. If Celia’s the killer, let’s nail her. Get a warrant to search her house again, and find whatever evidence you can. Last night you were just trying to find what had made Stan sick. This time you’re collecting evidence for the grand jury.”
Sid leaned back hard in his chair. “What if we’re wrong? What if there really is another killer out there—maybe even Lee Barnett—and Celia’s innocent?”
Jim’s eyes bore into him. “Do you think she is?”
“No.”
“Then let’s not waste our time chasing rabbits. My experience tells me you look at the most obvious first. Celia’s the most obvious suspect. If
she’s guilty, something in that house will tell us so.”
Sid left his office and radioed for one of the squad cars to come and pick him up. Chad Avery was the first to arrive. “Where we going?” he asked as Sid got in.
“To the Shepherd house. We have to search it again.”
“You got a warrant?”
“I’m stopping by Judge DeLacy’s office on the way.” He radioed Simone and asked her to dispatch one more evidence technician to the Shepherd house.
“We gonna be pawing through food and upchuck again?” Chad asked when he cut the radio off.
“No. This time we’re lookin’ for somethin’ even more substantial. Somethin’ that’ll tell us, once and for all, that Celia Shepherd intended to kill her husband.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The condition of the Shepherd’s house was just as they’d left it in the wee hours of the morning. Sid Ford looked around at the kitchen, cluttered with food containers and zip-lock bags that the police themselves had left out. “We’ve already done a pretty thorough search through the food,” Sid told the three cops with him. “This time, we’re lookin’ for anything that has arsenic in it. Rat poison, bug spray, whatever we can find. Chad, you take the attic. Vern and T.J., you take the garage and the utility room, then search the rest of the house with me, under sinks, in cabinets…I’ll concentrate on the laundry room. It’s not a big house, so we can lick this pretty quick if we try. Remember, whatever you find, let me know. If it’s the slightest bit suspicious, it’s relevant.”
They dispersed to their assignment areas, and Sid began to remove the contents of the cabinets in the laundry room one by one. He checked the ingredients of each box of detergent, smelling and feeling to make sure it was what it claimed to be. Because the laundry room was only large enough to hold the washer and dryer and a cabinet overhead, he finished quickly.
He went into the bedroom and saw the bed still unmade, and Celia’s robe and pajamas in a heap on her closet floor, where she’d changed clothes quickly in hopes of flying to Slidell with Stan. He went to the closet, searched the floor, and saw only a few pairs of shoes. Standing, he checked the top shelf, and saw several white shirt boxes stacked there. He pulled one down and looked inside.
A baby’s knitted sweater with matching booties and blanket were folded there. Lying on top of the little clothes was a pacifier with a ribbon and clip attached. Sid frowned. Were these for a baby gift? He could think of several church friends who were pregnant, including Allie Branning. It could have been intended for any of them. He set the box back in its place and reached for the next box. This time, he pulled out an expensive white christening gown with the price tag still attached. Unusual, he thought, for Celia to give such an extravagant gift.
He groped for the bag behind the boxes and looked inside. Several rolls of yarn the color of the knitted sweater were there, along with knitting needles and several other craft items he couldn’t identify. Celia had knitted the sweater, booties, and blanket herself. He whistled under his breath. It was an odd paradox, he thought, that someone caring enough to knit an entire set like that for a friend would also be a killer.
Then he realized that the baby clothes might not be for a friend at all. Maybe they had been for her. If so, if she and Stan were planning to have a baby, why would she want to kill her husband?
Troubled, he put the bag back, restacked the boxes, and stared at them for a moment. It didn’t add up. But he’d seen things that didn’t add up before. Crazy people did crazy things for crazy reasons.
“Sid, I got somethin’!” ”
Chad’s voice was coming from the attic stairs in the hallway, and Sid dashed toward it. “Whatcha got, Chad?”
“Just what we were lookin’ for,” Chad said victoriously, and brandished a box of rat poison.
Sid felt the blood flushing from his brown face, and he rubbed his jaw roughly. As much as he’d wanted evidence, the right evidence to convict Celia if she was guilty, he realized now that, in the back of his mind, he had wanted to find something, instead, that would prove to him that she wasn’t the culprit. But the evidence was there.
With his gloved hands, he took the box from Chad and examined the ingredients. Arsenic trioxide was one of the first ones listed.
“That’s it,” he said in a dull voice. “The smokin’ gun. Man, why would she do it?”
Chad looked as thrilled as if he’d just solved the Hoffa mystery. “Anybody else find anything?”
“Not yet.”
Sid bagged the poison, and kept staring at it, trying to picture a scenario in which Celia would spoon this into Stan’s food, then hide it in the attic. As clear as it was, it still didn’t add up.
“What is it?” Chad asked.
Sid shrugged. “Nothin’. Just thinkin’ how I hate this job sometimes.”
“Not me,” Chad said. “When things come t’gether like this, ’at’s when I know I couldn’t do nothin’ else.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Since Mark and Allie had not eaten at church, as they usually did on Wednesday nights, they went to Maison de Manger and ordered sandwiches. Though the place was nothing more than a deli, it was decorated like a Bourbon Street bistro. Jazz music was piped in, and on the walls were photos of Louis Armstrong and various other jazz greats with whom the owner, Eddie Neubig, had once shared an acquaintance. It was Allie’s favorite place because of the crawfish popcorn she could get as an appetizer, something she craved in the wee hours of morning.
They had invited Dan to join them, and he had seemed inclined to come with them, even though he’d already eaten, when he got a beep from Jill. He had gone to call her, so Mark and Allie had gone ahead to the restaurant.
Allie was finishing off her coveted crawfish popcorn when Dan and Jill came in together. Jill looked as if she’d gone days without sleep, but she was holding Dan’s hand. Allie wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Dan hold a woman’s hand before. He’d once told her that he didn’t like to date a woman over three times, because after that she thought of them as a couple. Allie had asked him how he’d ever get to be a couple with anyone if he cut it off at three dates. He’d grinned and said that was the idea.
She realized that he and Jill were long past three dates, unless he was creative with his counting and didn’t consider something like this a real date. The fact that he held her hand seemed a monumental breach of the distance Dan so arrogantly liked to keep. She didn’t know what Jill was doing, but it was apparently the right thing. Maybe it was the fact that she was so busy and often so unavailable. The challenge. Maybe Dan needed to be kept on his toes that way.
“Sorry I look like I’ve been drugged,” Jill said, dropping into the booth and sliding over. “But I wanted to see you guys. Dan told me about prayer meeting. Thanks for standing up for Celia, Allie.”
“How is she?” Allie asked as Dan slipped in beside Jill.
“Not good. Her brother is with her, which cheered her up some. But she’s still not feeling very well. I’m afraid the doctors overlooked something that could be wrong with her in an attempt to rule out arsenic. And of course, she’s miserably depressed and sick with worry about Stan.”
“He’s still not awake,” Dan said. “I got his mother on the phone, and she sounded really discouraged.”
The bell on the front door jingled as the door swung open again, and R.J. Albright, in his tent-sized uniform, came in and went to the bar to place his order. He glanced behind him and saw the four of them sitting there. He waved, quickly placed his order, then ambled across the room toward them.
“Slow night?” Mark asked him.
R.J. chuckled. “Hardly. I’m just now gettin’ to supper.”
“Oh, yeah?” Dan asked. “Something going on tonight?”
It was a common question among emergency personnel. No one ever wanted to miss anything big.
“We just searched the Shepherd house again,” R.J. said. He saw Jill bristling, and said, “We had a warrant, Counselor.” br />
“Well, I hope you’re satisfied now that she didn’t do it. There was no arsenic anywhere in that house, was there?”
R.J. grinned as if he had a secret that he couldn’t tell. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said.
Her face changed as she gaped up at him. “Then what would you say?”
“I’d probably be better off not to say nothin’,” he told her.
Jill’s face was beginning to turn red. “R.J., I’m Celia’s attorney. I have a right to know what you think you found.”
“Talk to Sid, Jill,” he said. “He’s headin’ up this investigation. I ain’t sayin’ no more.”
He turned and waddled back between the tables, and for a moment, Allie thought she saw Jill’s heart pumping through her shirt. “Excuse me,” Jill said. “I have to make a phone call.”
Dan got up and let her slide out, and she hurried out the door into the night.
“What do you think they found?” Mark asked Dan.
“Who knows?”
They waited quietly, perusing the menu with their minds on that conversation with R.J., while they waited for Jill to come back in.
Out in the privacy of her car, Jill dialed the police station and got Sid Ford’s desk.
“Ford,” he answered quickly.
“Sid, this is Jill Clark,” she said. “I understand you searched the Shepherd house tonight.”
There was a slight pause. “How’d you know?”
“What did you find?” she shot back.
Again, a pause.
“Sid, so help me…”
“We found arsenic hid in the attic, Jill.”
Her heart lurched. “In what form?”
“Rat poison,” he said.
“So maybe they had mice!”
“Maybe, and I’m sure you’ll make it your life’s work to prove they did. But we found what we were lookin’ for, Jill. Evidence. And that ain’t all of it. That Lee Barnett fellow you asked me to check on? Seems he just turned up in Newpointe. Moved into the Bonaparte Court apartments. And guess who paid the deposit and the first month’s rent?”