Bucket List: Maple Syrup Mysteries

I got his permission to enter his house and remove an old pill bottle if I needed to. From my visit to Darlene, I knew that like so many people in Fair Haven, they didn’t lock their doors. All I’d need to do was find a time when Darlene wasn’t home. Clement provided that for me too. Darlene did water aerobics three mornings a week at the Fair Haven pool, and she’d recently joined a knitting club that met once a week.

  Once the guard brought the medical release forms and Clement signed them, I headed out.

  The first thing I needed to do was establish when his medication had been tampered with so I knew whether to investigate Darlene or Clement’s doctor for a possible motive. Hopefully I could somehow prove that his medication had been altered. If I couldn’t, Clement would go to prison for murder, and when he got out, someone might still want to kill him.

  Saul would be able to tell me what prescription was on file for Clement. I still wanted to tell him about Gordon Albright’s house as well and how it was already set up for someone in a wheelchair. Once it was released, Leonard would no doubt sell it, and people tended to want to move a house they’d inherited quickly, which meant they often sold for less than they otherwise would have. After losing his chance to buy the pharmacy, hopefully learning about a house that was already wheelchair accessible would cheer him up a little.

  I parked as near the door of Dr. Horton’s Pharmacy as I could to avoid the biting wind and headed inside.

  A middle-aged man with dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses stood behind the counter where I’d expected to find Saul.

  I stuttered to a stop. Surely the new owner hadn’t fired Saul, but he had been worried about reduced hours.

  The man gave me a professional smile, the kind you knew was offered only because they thought they should and not because they felt it. “Are you picking up a prescription or dropping off?”

  I rested my fingers on the edge of the counter. Without Saul here, I felt like I wasn’t even in the same pharmacy. If I had been here to pick up a new prescription, I would have felt very unbalanced to not be able to speak to him. Though maybe Saul was still here and this man was simply another employee hired by the new owner to help carry the load. Saul did work ridiculous hours.

  “I actually wanted to talk to Saul about something. Is he in today?”

  “He’s out for a funeral unfortunately. His brother-in-law passed away.”

  Poor Saul. To lose a family member on top of everything else he’d been going through. He couldn’t seem to catch a break, and this must have come as a shock. When I’d been in here last time, he hadn’t said anything about his brother-in-law being sick. Though it might not have come up anyway. We’d only talked about his brother-in-law in relation to how he’d been a contributing factor in his sister’s death. “Was it sudden?”

  “I think so. Saul said he went into a diabetic coma and didn’t wake up. You can ask me what you need to, or he should be back in next week, if you’re more comfortable waiting.”

  Some people might not have understood why Saul would even attend his brother-in-law’s funeral or need time off to grieve, but I did. I’d attended the funeral of a man who tried to kill me. There was a sense of closure that came from attending. It let you put things behind you in a way you couldn’t otherwise—or at least, it had for me. When your life was in turmoil, any bit of closure you could get was a blessing. My suspicion was Russ was also struggling now because he’d never found a way to get that closure. Convincing him of that, though, was another thing altogether.

  Saul might find his brother-in-law’s funeral dredged up a lot of old emotions. A week might not even be enough, and I couldn’t wait.

  I explained who I was and laid out the signed consent forms, leaving out why I needed access to Clement’s prescriptions. That wasn’t something anyone else needed to know.

  He printed off a list of all the medications the pharmacy had dispensed to Clement over the past year. The only one on the list I recognized was penicillin.

  I pointed at the other two. “Could you tell me what these are for?”

  “That one is the shingles shot.” He touched a finger down beside the single dose prescription on the list, then slid his finger down alongside all the others, filled at monthly intervals. “And these are for high cholesterol.”

  The heaviness in my stomach was so intense that I felt like my feet must be sinking into the floor. He received a high cholesterol medication from the pharmacy. That meant they had to be switched afterward by someone with easy access to them. Only two people had that kind of access to Clement’s house. One of them was dead. The other was his wife.

  Since the police hadn’t found a motive for Clement to want to kill Gordon, the reverse was true as well. There wasn’t a clear reason Gordon would have wanted to kill Clement.

  Which left Darlene.

  Now all that was left for me to do was prove it.

  18

  If Saul had been working instead of the new pharmacist, I might have asked more questions about what medications could cause insomnia. I trusted Saul to keep it to himself. I wasn’t going to ask his replacement.

  The Fair Haven rumor mill had a stronger draw than gravity. Some of the things I’d heard since coming here shouldn’t have been common knowledge. Even though pharmacists weren’t supposed to share confidential information, this man might think a question about medications that could cause insomnia didn’t apply. After all, it wasn’t a question about my personal medications or Clement’s personal medications.

  A general question probably wasn’t even covered under confidentiality. So if I asked, I’d have to trust in the discretion of a stranger. If he were a gossip monger, asking him not to share would only convince him he had a tastier tidbit of news.

  Even if he went home and only told his roommate or his wife about how a lawyer came in today asking about medications that could cause insomnia, that could travel the Fair Haven network before I woke up. Right now, I didn’t want to risk tipping anyone off to what I was doing.

  I thanked the pharmacist and left, taking the print-out of Clement’s medications with me.

  I checked my watch. Tonight was the night of Darlene’s knitting club, so I had to be there shortly after she would need to leave if I didn’t want to have to wait until she went swimming on Monday. In the meantime, I had to hurry or I was going to be late to my supper with Mark and Stacey to talk about how we could get Russ to take our concerns about his health seriously.

  Mark walked me out to my car after supper with Stacey, but he didn’t let go of my hand once we got there. “Are you really okay with all of us trying to talk to Russ independently first before we do an intervention-style sit down?”

  I’d been outvoted in our little meeting. Stacey wasn’t comfortable with confronting Russ as a group, which shouldn’t have surprised me considering how she’d been raised. Her father was a shy, private man who’d worked hard throughout her childhood to keep her out of the Fair Haven rumor circuit.

  Mark simply hadn’t thought Russ would react well to it.

  The agreement we’d come to was that we’d each find a time in the next week to speak to him privately and express our concerns. The theory was that it should have a similar effect of an “intervention” without the potential for negative rebound from Russ.

  “I’m really okay with it. I think Saul advice was good in that Russ needs to hear it from more than just me, but I agree we need to adapt that general advice to take Russ’ personality into account.” I squeezed his hand. “Besides, if this doesn’t work, we can always try it the other way later.”

  Mark leaned in for a kiss, and for a minute, I forgot how cold it was outside.

  When we finally pulled apart, I wanted to snuggle back into the warmth of his arms. We were so close to our wedding now, only a few more months. “It’ll be nice when we can go home together instead of going our separate ways.”

  Mark flashed me those dimples of his that I was sure I’d love until the day we died. “Did you want to go
to The Burnt Toast for some dessert before we part ways?”

  I did, but I couldn’t. Supper ran longer than expected, and Darlene would already be on her way to her knitting club. If I didn’t go now, I’d have to wait. “I’d like to, but I have to search my client’s house while his wife is away.”

  Mark’s hand clenched around mine. “Why would you need to do that?” There was an edge to his tone.

  I’d been so caught up in wanting to solve this conundrum and help Clement that I hadn’t thought this part of the plan through the way I normally would. Taking a step back and looking at it through Mark’s eyes, perhaps it wasn’t wise to go in alone. Even though I didn’t think Darlene would hurt me if she found me there—if she was guilty, she chose a very non-confrontational way to kill Clement—it was better not to take that chance at all.

  I explained the situation to him. “I could use some back up. You can drop me off and then park somewhere along the road. If I’m not out before you spot Darlene’s car coming back, you can call me to let me know to get out. What do you think?”

  “What are my chances of convincing you not to go at all?”

  “Slim to none. It’s the only way for me to figure out if my client’s wife was trying to kill him.”

  “Then I suppose I’ll have to play Robin to your Batman again because you know I’m not letting you go alone.”

  I felt a lot less like Batman than like a cat burglar, but Clement had given me permission to go into his home and look for old pill bottles. And having Mark back as my sidekick on a crazy scheme reminded me of how we’d hunted for my Uncle Stan’s killer together.

  Which unfortunately brought another idea to mind. It was possible Clement’s medications were the medications he’d been prescribed and that something else had been crushed up and put into his food at home. That’d been the case in one of my earliest investigations in Fair Haven, and it would also explain why Clement got better in prison since he’d stopped eating food from his own home.

  If Darlene did that, I likely wouldn’t ever be able to prove it. I had to pray she hadn’t been that crafty. It’d have been much simpler for her to swap out the medications and allow Clement to harm himself without realizing it.

  Clement had said he started sleeping after he ran out of the medication Darlene brought him from home. My original theory still seemed stronger than my new one. We wouldn’t know until I found a pill bottle.

  On the drive there, I described the Dodd’s car to Mark as best I could remember it.

  He let me off at the house. “Should I call or text when I see her car?”

  A text would be less intrusive, but it could take too long. I’d have to have time to get to the backdoor and out into the woods before she entered the house or she might see me. “Call.”

  I waved goodbye and walked right in the front door. With the way our world was going, I didn’t see how people still felt safe leaving their doors unlocked. I could have been someone intending to rob them or lie in wait and hurt Darlene as easily as I was Clement’s lawyer looking for evidence.

  I got my phone out of my pocket—I left my purse in the car with Mark—so I would be able to answer immediately.

  I moved slowly deeper into the house.

  All the lights were off. As Mark pulled away down the driveway, darkness closed in on me, tight and heavy. My breathing shallowed, and I struggled to take deep enough breathes to keep from getting light-headed. Now that I was living in Fair Haven permanently, I should consider petitioning them for more street lights.

  I’d expected Darlene would leave a light on. I hated coming home to a dark, empty house, even though my dogs were there, so I always left the front light on and a light inside. Turning a light on in her house wasn’t an option. It’d be too obvious if she made it to the end of her driveway before I could turn it off after Mark called. I should have brought a flashlight.

  My shin connected with something hard, my phone shot out of my hand, and I yelped. I bent over and rubbed the sort spot. Good thing they didn’t have a dog. I’d be dinner right about now.

  Though I now had a bigger problem than becoming doggie chow. My phone was somewhere in the dark. I got down on my hands and knees and groped along the floor. I’d be in a real spot if Mark called before I found it. I’d have wasted all my time and gotten nothing to show for it. But at least it would light up if he called and I’d be able to find it.

  Light up. I smacked my forehead. My phone had a built-in flashlight. If I could find it.

  It felt like ten minutes passed before my eyes adjusted, and I spotted my phone wedged under the corner of the couch. I’d run my shin into their coffee table.

  I swooped my phone up and turned on my cellphone light.

  I made my way through the living room, giving the door into the office where Gordon died a wide berth. I’d check the kitchen first. Some people kept their medications there because they took them with breakfast.

  The table and counters were clear of anything except a jar of peanut butter and a crumb-covered plate with a knife resting across it. Had Darlene eaten only peanut butter toast for supper? I knew it wasn’t left over from breakfast because I could still smell the warm yeasty aroma of toasting bread in the air. Maybe she’d been too short on time to cook.

  Or…she’d told me Clement and Gordon cooked breakfast every morning. Not every woman, even of Darlene’s generation, was a good cook or liked to cook. If Clement was the cook in the household, it definitely meant Darlene hadn’t been seeding his food with anything that could cause insomnia.

  If he took care of so much, the little lawyer’s voice in my head whispered, why would she want to kill him?

  It was a question I couldn’t answer now. First I had to find evidence that she had before I looked for the reasons why.

  I opened each cupboard and the drawers. No pill bottles. Clement said he only took the one medication, so he didn’t use the weekly pill dispenser that my Uncle Stan used to have.

  If the pills weren’t in the kitchen, that left Clement and Darlene’s bedroom and bathrooms. I’d used their powder room during my brief visit to see Darlene. It was a pedestal sink with no medicine chest or other storage in the room where someone would keep medications.

  I went back the way I’d come and crossed to the other side of the house. Presumably that’s where the bedrooms and full bathroom were since I hadn’t seen them yet.

  The first door I opened must have been a bedroom in the prior life. Now it was stacked full of boxes, a lantern, and a two-man logging saw that had to be at least five-feet tall.

  Clement’s meds wouldn’t be in there unless he wanted to lose them.

  I opened the next door. Bingo. Master bedroom. The door off the other side must lead into their bathroom. I’d check there first.

  I looked on the sink, in the vanity under the sink, and in the medicine chest. No pill bottles belonging to Clement. This might have been a fool’s errand. Most people threw away empty medicine bottles as soon as they took the last dose, and the bathroom garbage had clearly been emptied recently. If there’d been an empty bottle here, it would have been gone over a month ago since Darlene left the most recent bottle at the Fair Haven police station for Clement.

  I needed to look for bottles that would still be here after a month. The only trash can in my house that didn’t get emptied often was the one in the bedroom.

  I shone my light around the room. A trash can huddled next to the dresser. I went over and nudged it with my foot. A couple of tissues, an empty tube of hand cream, and a mint wrapper.

  Darlene had to be almost done at her knitting club. I didn’t know how far away it was. Just because I’d never heard of a knitting club in Fair Haven didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Knitting wasn’t exactly my thing. I’d have likely taken an eye out with the needles.

  All I could hope was that her club was in a nearby town instead. At least Mark hadn’t called me yet.

  I stepped back into the bedroom and tapped my foot. If I
were a pill bottle, where would I hide?

  Smart Nikki. If you were a pill bottle, you wouldn’t hide anywhere because you wouldn’t be a sentient being.

  So if I were someone who took medication, and I kept it in my bedroom, where might I drop a bottle if I didn’t want to cross the room to throw it out? My Uncle Stan used to keep his medications in the drawer of his bedside table.

  I pulled open the drawer of one bedside table. Ladies reading glasses and a romance novel lay inside. That drawer must belong to Darlene.

  One last chance. I’d check the other bedside table, and then I’d leave, even if Mark hadn’t called. If it wasn’t here, I was out of ideas, and Darlene could be home any moment.

  Clement’s drawer stuck. The force of my pull rattled the bed stand, and a shiver raced down my chest. I glanced automatically over my shoulder toward the door. I needed to get out of here. I was starting to get jumpy, my heart beating so loud I might not have been able to hear the door open over it.

  After all, what did I really expect Mark to do if Darlene caught me here somehow and wanted to kill me? It’s not like he was in the house with me.

  I wriggled the drawer more gently and it slid open. An empty pill bottle rolled to the front.

  Finally.

  I grabbed it out and shoved the door tightly closed. Hopefully there’d be enough residue inside that I could get it tested by a lab to determine what’d been in it.

  A creak came from the front of the house and then the front door banged shut.

  19

  I almost lost my grip on both my phone and the pill bottle. My fingers shook so hard I missed hitting the spot to turn my cell phone light off the first time I tried.

  The screen still glowed though. Darlene would see it—and me—if she came back to this part of the house. Why hadn’t Mark called to warn me?

  If he thought he saw Darlene’s car now, he’d call and give me away. I turned my phone off and jammed it into my pocket.