“You’re free to go anytime you want, but I’d appreciate it if you’d wait til we’ve examined the evidence they got from your house.”
“What evidence?”
“The food. The dishes that were in the dishwasher. That kind of thing.”
Jill, who looked as tired as the rest of them, checked her watch. “Sid, I want a copy of the lab report as soon as it’s ready. Have you called to see if arsenic was found?”
“We didn’t tape off their house till just a few hours ago. The evidence we collected ain’t even at the lab yet. It just opened.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Jill asked. “If you really care about Stan, and if you ever cared about Celia, you’ll get the evidence over there. If there’s no trace of the arsenic in their food or dishes, then you’ll know that he got it somewhere other than home. If you do find a trace of it there, maybe we can figure out where the food was bought. You remember how to do police work, don’t you? Stan isn’t the only one around here who knows how to investigate a crime, is he?”
Sid bristled. “Insultin’ me ain’t gon’ get you nowhere, Jill. I know you’re tired, but I am, too.”
She blew out a frustrated breath and leaned back hard in her chair.
“Has anyone called to check on Stan?” Celia’s question cut through the petty exchange and reminded them what this was about.
“Aunt Aggie has. No change.”
“Maybe he needs to be in New Orleans. Maybe their facilities would be more up-to-date.”
“I’m sure the doctor will have him transferred if it becomes necessary, Celia.” Jill took in a deep breath. “While we’re waiting for the lab results, I think my client needs to make a few phone calls.”
Celia looked up at her. “What phone calls?”
“Isn’t there anyone you want to call?” Jill asked. “Your parents? Your brother, maybe?”
She closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips on her eyelids. “Oh, no. It’s my birthday. They were supposed to come to see me today. The first time they’ve ever seen my home. I was so hopeful…” She looked up, suddenly alarmed. “I need to call them before they leave Jackson. I don’t want them to get here and find out that it’s all happening again. They went years without speaking to me. It wasn’t until a few months ago that we even spoke by phone. And then, yesterday, I thought we were about to reconcile completely.”
Jim and R.J. exchanged looks, as if her estrangement from her family was the evidence they needed that she was a cold-blooded murderer.
“What happened yesterday?”
She groaned. “I told you, Jim, that Stan went to see them to try to convince them to come visit on my birthday. He thought it would make me happy.”
“You told me he’d visited with your parents, but you didn’t mention why.”
“I didn’t think it was relevant. My parents are John and Joanna Bradford, from Jackson, Mississippi. They own Bradford Oil.”
“The rich Bradfords?” R.J. asked indelicately.
“Yes, they’re the ones.”
R.J. and Jim exchanged looks again. “Stan never told us you was rich,” R.J. said. “You didn’t seem to live no higher than any of us other police officers.”
“I’m not rich,” Celia said. “Didn’t you hear me? I said that they turned against me during the last trial. They disowned me completely. Considered me dead.” Angry new tears burst to her eyes as she spoke. “But I missed them. And Stan and I wanted to start a family, and I wanted my kids to know their grandparents.”
Jill touched her hand, and she closed her eyes and tried to pull herself together.
“I had gotten them to talk to me, but things were still strained. Then Stan started calling them, and they listened to him. A couple of weeks ago, my brother came for a visit, and Stan asked him to help set up a meeting with my parents. He wanted my birthday to be special, so he went to see them yesterday. He got them to call me. We had a good talk, and I thought they were forgiving me—”
“Forgiving you for what?” Jill asked.
“For…for embarrassing the family name. For bringing shame on them. I don’t know.”
“So they called…” Jim prompted.
“They were going to visit me today—them and my brother, David, and I was so nervous and excited about it. I wanted everything to be perfect…” Her voice trailed off, and she wiped her eyes again. “I guess I’ll have to call them and tell them, and they’ll wash their hands of me again.”
“I’ll get Aunt Aggie to call,” Jill said.
Celia shook her head. “She won’t want to. Aunt Aggie’s my great-aunt, and my mother is her niece. She hasn’t spoken to her since the trial.”
“But she can make her understand.”
Celia shook her head. “No. They’ll never buy it. They didn’t the first time. It’s taken years for them to get to the point where they’d even admit I was alive. Aunt Aggie and my brother were the only two family members who supported me.”
“Your brother didn’t have any clout with them?”
“Apparently not. He tried, but they’re very proud and stubborn people.”
Jill couldn’t believe they could be so stubborn as to turn their backs on her again.
“Guys, could you leave her alone here and take a break until I get back from getting Aunt Aggie to make the phone calls?”
“I could use some breakfast,” Jim said, standing and stretching.
“So could she,” Jill said. “Why don’t you get her something to eat?”
“I can’t eat,” Celia said. “I’m not feeling very well.”
Jill sighed and waited for the two cops to leave. All of their nerves were shot, and she doubted that any of them would get any rest soon. She bent over the table and looked into Celia’s eyes. “Celia, you need to eat.”
“I’m queasy,” she said. “If I eat, I’ll throw it up. I know they said I hadn’t been poisoned, and I’m sure I haven’t, but I still feel sick, Jill.”
“Can I get you anything?” Jill asked. “Some Pepto Bismol, maybe?”
Unaccountably, Celia closed her eyes and her face twisted and reddened as she began to cry again. She grabbed a tissue out of the box on the table and wiped at her nose. “That’s what he wanted,” she muttered. “Pepto Bismol. Like that would save him from arsenic poisoning, keep him out of that coma. Oh, why is this happening?”
Jill stood still, looking at her and wondering if she dared leave her alone in this state. “I’ll stay here,” she said softly. “I can talk to Aunt Aggie later.”
Celia shook her head and waved a hand at her. “No, go. I’m fine. I need to be alone for a little while, anyway.”
Jill didn’t like the sound of that. She looked around the room, wondering if Celia intended to do herself harm. There was nothing in the room that she could use, but one never knew for sure. “Maybe that’s not a good idea, Celia. I’ll just stay.”
Celia seemed to realize where Jill’s thoughts were leading her. “Oh, you don’t think I’m going to kill myself or something, do you? For heaven’s sake, Jill, I just want to be alone to pray. I haven’t had a minute alone in hours.”
“Pray. Of course.” Jill relaxed then and knew it was exactly what she would have expected of Celia if she’d been thinking clearly. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt for her to do the same. “All right, Celia. I’ll leave you alone.”
Still weeping, Celia dropped her head in the circle of her arms as Jill left the room.
Chapter Eight
Jill found Aunt Aggie looking like death warmed over, and she realized how difficult it must be for a woman of her age to endure an all-nighter in a folding chair. The woman sat straight up with her purse in her lap and her feet flat on the floor, her eyes closed, as if she was sound asleep.
Jill bent over and touched her arm gently, reluctant to wake her if she slept. “Aunt Aggie?”
The old woman’s eyes flew open, and she asked, “They done torturin’ her yet?”
Jill shook her head.
“No, they’re not finished with her. We’re waiting for the report to come back from the lab. In the meantime, I thought maybe you could call Celia’s parents and tell them what’s happened.”
She gave Jill a bitterly disgusted look. “I ain’t spoke one word to my niece since she turned her back on Celia, and I ain’t startin’ now.”
“But Aunt Aggie, Celia said they were coming to visit her today, and she doesn’t want them to hear about this after they get here. Please, won’t you call them?”
“I’ll call T-David, Celia’s brother,” she said. “Him I can talk to. But Celia’s mama’s hardheaded as a ram. I could go the rest of my life without talkin’ to her, what she done to that poor girl.”
Aggie got to her feet, resisting Jill’s help, and started walking. “Which phone can we use?”
“Take that one,” Jill said, pointing to an empty desk. “We’ll use my credit card number.”
Jill punched in the preliminary code, then gave the phone to Aunt Aggie. She dialed the number, rattling on as she did. “David lives in that mausoleum of a house with ’em…disgraceful how big it is…on three hundred acres…and he gots a whole wing to hisself. But sometimes his mama answers his line, and when she does, I just hang up…”
“Don’t hang up this time, Aunt Aggie. Celia needs for you to do this.”
Jill watched the tension on the old woman’s face as she waited for the ring to be answered. When it was, she pulled her chin up and tightened her lips and said, “David, please. Well, where can I reach ’im? Yeah, Joanna, it’s me.” Her face was reddening, and she shot Jill a disgusted look. “No, that ain’t why I’m callin’. I was glad you finally got over your bullheadedness to make up with your daughter. But Celia can’t make it today, so don’t come.”
It was not how she would have handled it, Jill thought, irritated, but it was too late to do anything about it.
Aunt Aggie listened, her lips growing even thinner. “No, she ain’t backed out, Joanna. But Stan, he’s sick, in the hospital. Somebody tried to poison him.”
Again, Jill’s spirits sagged. There must be a better way to break the news, but delicacy had never been one of Aunt Aggie’s traits.
Aunt Aggie closed her eyes, as though bracing herself for what came next, and when she opened them again Jill could see pure rage in her eyes. “No, Celia didn’t do it, just like she didn’t do it last time, but you never believe that ’cause you don’t know your daughter. All you care about is yourself and your stupid, silly family name, which nobody cares nothin’ about!”
Incredulous at how badly this was going, Jill snatched the phone out of Aunt Aggie’s hand. The old woman surrendered it gladly.
“Uh…Mrs. Bradford? This is Jill Clark, a friend of Celia’s.”
“Where is my aunt?” the woman asked. Hers was a soft voice, very similar to Celia’s, and she didn’t sound like the shrew Aunt Aggie had made her out to be at all. “I need to talk to my aunt.”
“Uh…she doesn’t want to talk to you anymore, Mrs. Bradford. But I thought you should know that your daughter needs you now more than ever. Because of her first husband’s cause of death, the police have been questioning her.”
“Then they’ve arrested her again?”
“No. They’re only questioning her.” She could hear the muffled sob on the other end, something that surprised her. “I know it would help her tremendously if she had your moral support now, especially on her birthday. I’m an attorney and I’m doing everything I can to clear this up, but for now—”
“I should have known.”
Jill hesitated. “Mrs. Bradford, you should have known what?”
“That this reconciliation, this reunion…was too good to be true.” A moment of silence passed. “I had such hopes.”
“You can still have a reunion.”
“Is he dead?” The words seemed to come on a wave of emotion.
“No. He’s in a coma.”
“He was a nice man. I liked him very much. I could see why Celia loved him.”
She ignored her use of past tense. “Yes, it’s quite a tragedy. More so because of what Celia’s going through.”
“Thank you for calling, Miss Clark. I appreciate it.”
Jill sat there for a moment, holding the line. “Is that all? Aren’t you going to come?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“But your daughter needs you.”
“She has my aunt.”
“Mrs. Bradford—”
The phone clicked in her ear, and Jill froze, still holding it.
“Hanged up on you, didn’t she?” Aggie asked.
“Yes, she did.”
“If there was a hell, it would be for folks like her.”
“There is a hell, Aunt Aggie. And you don’t want to wish it on your niece.”
She watched as the old woman dug a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. Across the room, Sid got off of his own telephone and headed toward her.
“What did you find out?” she asked as he reached her.
He leaned over the desk, bracing himself with his hands. “There wasn’t a trace of arsenic in any of the evidence we collected from the house,” he said, “’cept for what Stan had…purged.”
“All right, now we’re getting somewhere,” Jill said, springing up with renewed energy. “Sid, you have to see that if Celia had done this, there would have been some evidence.”
“She didn’t have to do it at home, Jill. She’s experienced, remember? She knows how to cover her tracks.”
“Cover her tracks?” Jill asked in a whisper, to keep from giving the gossip mill more fodder. “Give me a break! She’d have to be pretty stupid to think she was covering her tracks by poisoning her husband someplace else, with the same poison she was accused of using on her first husband! Don’t you think she’d know that she would be the very first suspect?”
“Maybe that’s what she is, Jill. Stupid. Or maybe she’s just crazy. You ever thought of that? You’d better, because when I get through gatherin’ all the evidence in this case, the insanity defense might be her only hope.”
Before either of them knew what had happened, Aggie had leaped up and swung her purse across Sid’s head, knocking him over.
“Man!” he shouted. “Why’d you do that?”
“Don’t you talk ’bout my niece like that again!” the old woman shouted.
“That thing must weigh a ton!” Sid staggered back, holding the side of his head. “Whatcha got in there? Bricks? I could arrest you for assaultin’ a police officer.”
“You do it! Throw a eighty-one-year-old woman in jail, see what it gets you!”
He backed off, as if too exhausted to fight her anymore. “Guess this insanity thing runs in the blasted family.”
Then mumbling under his breath, he headed for Jim Shoemaker’s office.
Jill caught up with him and blocked his entrance. “Sid, is my client under arrest?”
“That’s what I’m goin’ in to talk to the chief about.”
“You don’t have probable cause. You don’t have a shred of evidence. All you have is an unsolved case from six years ago.” Sid ignored her and tried to get around her.
“Sid, think. Why would she tell you it was arsenic if she wanted him dead? It would have taken days to discover that, postmortem, if they hadn’t known to test him for it. Use your logic!”
“My logic tells me she could be a few bricks shy of a full load, Jill. That maybe she tried to kill him and got cold feet at the last minute. I’ll leave that to the psychiatrists. All’s I know is we got a police detective layin’ half dead in the hospital, and she’s the only suspect we got. I don’t care how blonde, how pretty, or how married she is. If she’s a killer, I’m gon’ lock her up.”
Jill wasn’t about to leave it at that. As he started into Jim’s office, she followed him in.
“Jim, since you’re finished questioning my client, I’m telling her she can leave,” she blurted before Sid could get anyt
hing out.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Sid said. “Jim, I’m gon’ book her.”
Jim sank back in his seat. “You can’t book her, Sid. We don’t have any compelling evidence or any probable cause.”
Jill shot him a satisfied look, but he didn’t give up.
“Jim, who else coulda done it?” Sid demanded. “Look, she’s my friend, too. I’ve always liked Celia. But the facts just stack up against her.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Jim asked. “And you have to explain to Stan why you locked up his wife when he needed her most? And on her birthday, to boot.”
Jill leaned over his desk. “Jim, all she wants to do is go back to the hospital and be with him. She’s scared to death. Let her go. You’ll know where she is.”
Jim nodded and looked up at Sid. “Tell her she can go home, but not to leave town.”
“What about Slidell?” Jill asked. “That’s where Stan is.”
“Tell her not to go farther than Slidell. And we may have to question her more later.”
Sid went to a filing cabinet and leaned his elbow on it. His anger was on simmer, working up to a low boil. Jim got up, rubbing his paunch. “Sid, the investigation continues. If you show me evidence that Celia did this, I won’t hesitate to lock her up.”
Sid nodded and started back out the door. “I got work to do.”
Jill shook Jim’s hand and thanked him, then went to tell Celia the good news.
Chapter Nine
They had moved Stan to a room by the time Celia got back to the hospital, and she hurried up to his floor. Hannah and Bart, her in-laws, were in there with him, watching a television set with the sound turned low. It was as if they watched out of politeness, since it was there and they didn’t know what else to do with themselves. Hannah’s mouse-brown hair was mashed flat on one side, as if she hadn’t teased it back into shape since being awakened in the middle of the night. Bart hadn’t shaved.
Hannah sprang up when Celia came through the door. As if she’d been holding back her tears just for Celia, her mother-in-law began to cry and hugged her fiercely. “How is he?” Celia asked.