“Yes, it is necessary, Chantal. I don’t know what I would have done without you. And you, too, Alex,” Mrs. Brissart said.
She held a large tray holding a teakettle, several cups, and an assortment of tea bags. I jumped up, took it from her frail hands and set it on the coffee table.
“Alex, could you make sure you bill me for the entire week?”
I nodded, knowing it would do no good to argue.
Always Prepared paired Chantal with Mrs. Brissart last year. When it turned into a permanent relationship, I suggested that perhaps Mrs. Brissart would just like to pay Chantal herself thus avoiding the fees of the agency, but Mrs. Brissart liked the arrangement just as it was, and Always Prepared remained Chantal’s actual employer. I suspected Mrs. Brissart liked helping out young companies and this was her way of helping us.
“Chantal tells me you’re off with Mrs. Platz for a few days.”
“Yes. That’s right. We all need a break from this place. While I’m gone, Mr. Kaminski is going to paint the room where they found Bradley and have new carpeting put in. Even so, I’ll never go in there again.”
“Are your son and daughter-in-law going back to London after they return from Virginia?”
“In about a month, yes. I think they’re actually looking forward to it. Lillian has been so withdrawn. I’m hoping her friends in London will be able to help her.” Mrs. Brissart reached for a spoon of sugar but her hand, shaking so badly, dropped the crystals onto the carpet. “I am trying so hard. We all are. But it’s not working. I’ve seen death before. You don’t get to be my age without watching family and friends pass away, but my grandson.” Mrs. Brissart put her head into her hands and wept softly as Chantal held the poor woman. She looked at me over Mrs. Brissart’s head; her own eyes had tears in them.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Brissart raised her tear-streaked face. “I’m sorry, girls. If you’ll excuse me.” Mrs. Brissart stood up and walked slowly down the hall, her shoulders bent forward.
I got down on my knees to wipe the sugar off the carpet using a napkin dampened with a bit of water from the kettle. “Chantal, do you know if Bradley told Mrs. Brissart anything about the family history before he died?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know exactly. Kendra stopped by my office yesterday. She’s going to New Hampshire for a while.”
“Yes. She told us. She came by here yesterday as well to say good-bye. I wasn’t scheduled to work, but I just wanted to check and see if Mrs. Brissart or Lillian needed anything.”
“Well, she said Bradley found out something interesting with regard to the family history. From what he said she thought it was something good, but he didn’t elaborate. All he said was he needed to do a bit more checking.”
“I don’t remember him telling Mrs. Brissart anything specific, though he could have when I wasn’t around. She hasn’t said anything. The stuff I typed for him didn’t seem to have anything special in it as far as family histories go.”
“Alex, you didn’t need to clean that up.” Mrs. Brissart came back into the living room having rinsed her face and combed her hair.
“There. It’s all done.” I got up from the floor. “Mrs. Brissart, I was just asking Chantal about the family history.”
“I haven’t given that a thought since Bradley died. I guess it’ll never get written up properly now.”
“Did Bradley say anything to you about finding something specific? You told John he wanted to talk and you never got a chance, but did he say anything at all?”
“Yes, that’s right,” added Chantal. “He did mention wanting to speak with you, Mrs. Brissart, but you asked if it could wait until later.”
Mrs. Brissart thought a moment. “That’s correct. He said it was fascinating or interesting or some such. I think he may have used the word disturbing. But I was right in the middle of baking those cookies. And that’s as far as we got, as I mentioned before. We never had another chance for him to elaborate. Or me to listen,” Mrs. Brissart added softly.
“Disturbing. Hmmm. I’m sure Kendra said he was happy about it,” I said feeling a bit perplexed.
I watched the old woman. She really did have lovely skin. I gazed into Mrs. Brissart’s crystal blue eyes, only slightly clouded from her recent crying spell. Could she have killed her grandson? Was John right? But if she did, why would she admit just now that Bradley found out something disturbing? Wouldn’t that be a tip-off? I didn’t have any answers.
“Well, I could certainly be wrong,” Mrs. Brissart added, “I’m not too well lately, as you’ve noticed. Now with all this nonsense about May...”
Just then the front bell rang. Mrs. Brissart got up to go answer it. meeting Mrs. Platz in the hall. “It’s okay, Virginia, I’ve got it.” Mrs. Platz joined her by the door anyway.
“Good morning, Mrs. Brissart, Mrs. Platz.” I recognized John’s voice. “May we come in?”
“Certainly, Detectives.” Mrs. Platz took the two coats and John and Jim followed Mrs. Brissart into the living room. “We were just having something to drink and talking.”
John said good morning to Chantal and gave my shoulder a soft pat. “Mrs. Brissart, I’m so sorry about your sister. I wanted to come by last night, but it got to be too late.”
“I’m sure my sister kept you quite busy. June called me in a complete uproar about police brutality, but I thought a bit would do both of them good.”
“John,” I said. “Exactly what happened? Did she confess?”
John pulled up a small, upholstered footstool and sat close to Mrs. Brissart while Jim lingered behind, as usual.
“Not at first. But when we confronted her with the evidence, she actually became very belligerent and told the whole story.”
“Which is?” I asked none too happily at having to prod the goods out of him.
“Once the lab identified what was in the Cherry Heering, we knew it came from the tropics. Florida, the Caribbean.”
“Of course! And my sister just came back from a trip to…oh, I’m not sure.”
“Florida. She had a nice tan so we asked where she’d been. And she told us how she’d just spent some time in Florida with friends. Of course, a lot of people take vacations down there this time of year so that really didn’t mean much. But Detective Maroni,” John gestured over his shoulder to the young man, “had a hunch.”
“You found the beans?” asked Mrs. Brissart incredulously.
“No. But we found some residue inside her blender.” John tried very hard not to look at me, and I tried very hard not to say I told you so. “Some of the bean mash got caught between the rubber piece and the base. Detective Maroni went to see your sister late yesterday afternoon. After asking some questions, she broke down. She actually gave us the blender.”
I wondered if my confrontation with May had caused the older woman to be more vulnerable to the police.
Mrs. Brissart sat quietly for a few moments before she asked another question. “Did she put the beans in the liqueur on Monday evening?”
“No. She said she came over on Saturday,” John answered. “You went to the grocery store, Mrs. Platz had gone to her sister’s, and May saw Mr. Kaminski leave. As soon as he left, she just came in and poured the stuff into the bottle.”
“That’s right! She called me in the morning for some thing or another and I said I couldn’t talk because I had to go and buy the ingredients for the cookies. She knew Virginia was gone and Mr. Kaminski wanted to go to the garden shop to buy more mums for the front yard.”
“So what happens to her now?” Chantal asked.
“She’s in jail. June stayed with her for as long as allowed.”
“Was June involved in any of this?” I asked.
“No. May says no, and of course June agrees.”
“June called me last night after she returned home. She wasn’t too friendly toward me, Detective Van der Burg. Acted as if I brought it all on myself.”
“Well, Mrs. Brissart, they’re
both blaming you.”
“Blaming me. For what?”
“For not selling. For being uncooperative. For just about anything wrong in their own lives at the moment.”
“But my grandson is dead.” Mrs. Brissart paused for a moment to regain her composure. “Are they blaming me for that as well?”
Now it was my turn to not look at John. I knew how he felt about Mrs. Brissart as a suspect, though I suspected he had cooled to the idea. With this new development, I felt sure he would drop it all together.
“No, they don’t blame you for his death.” John shook his head. “I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but I really don’t believe your sister’s intention was to kill you. I think she truly thought it would just scare you. Maybe make you a bit ill.”
“But how would making me ill make me change my mind about selling the land? That doesn’t make sense, Detective.”
“She didn’t do her homework. She believed it would make Mrs. Brissart ill instantly and of course the illness would be connected to the Cherry Heering. And then, Mrs. Brissart you would realize someone tampered with the bottle and by association it would be connected to the land. For both of your sisters, the sale of that land is all they can think of so naturally they concluded it would be all you or anyone else involved could think of.”
“It’s ironic because that probably would have never crossed my mind. If I saw something floating in the bottle and then became sick, I would just throw it out thinking it was old, which it is, and had gone bad. I would never have associated that with someone wanting to kill me.”
“That just shows how different you are.”
“I’ve always known that, Detective. So what happens now?”
“Well, in all honesty, nothing. We’ll be releasing her today.”
“Releasing her. Why?” I snapped.
“Because no real crime was committed. Attempted murder is a very gray area.”
“I say keep her there. Find something to hold her on. Maybe a parking ticket never paid,” Mrs. Brissart spat.
“I agree,” I said. “If Mrs. Brissart drank any of that stuff, she might be dead right now as well.”
John gave me a look, though I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. Probably a mind-your-own-business or don’t-get-involved look, which he knew was way too late anyway, so I just ignored him.
“I understand your feelings, but like I said, attempted murder is very vague and given her age. I’m sorry, but she’ll probably be released this morning,” John explained to Mrs. Brissart.
“So she gets away with it?” Mrs. Brissart asked.
“In a sense, I suppose she does, though in all honesty, nothing became of her attempt. She’s really quite shaken. If it makes you feel any better, I think a night in jail humbled her.”
“Ha! A century in prison would not humble my sister, Detective, don’t kid yourself.” Mrs. Brissart got up and walked over to the large window looking out onto the front yard. “Fine. Let her go. But, I warn you, neither one of them better come anywhere near me. Maybe I’ll get a restraining order.”
“You can certainly try, Mrs. Brissart. And rest assured, we will find who killed Bradley. We have not given up on that,” said Jim Maroni.
“Good. I hope the next time I see either one of you,” Mrs. Brissart took in both detectives, “it will be because the killer of my grandson is behind bars. I don’t know if I’m more disgusted with May for trying to kill me or because her little ploy has taken valuable time and effort away from the investigation into Bradley’s death.”
“I assure you it’s our top priority, Mrs. Brissart,” Detective Maroni said.
I got up to leave along with the two men. I told Mrs. Brissart to have a safe journey and to call when she returned. Mrs. Platz appeared with our coats when I suddenly looked at Mrs. Brissart. “I never did ask you. How many of those macaroons did you eat?” I turned to John. “There were still several left that had the cyanide in them, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes. Two or three, I think. You and Mrs. Platz were very lucky.”
Mrs. Brissart looked up into my eyes. “I didn’t eat any, Alex. I hate macaroons.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
John turned slowly. “You don’t like macaroons? How long has that been?”
“All my life.” Mrs. Brissart looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Why do you ask?”
John put his coat down and went back to Mrs. Brissart and took a seat on the stool. “Who knows you hate macaroons?”
“Why everybody, I would imagine. I’ve never liked them. The batch I made for Bradley was from an old family recipe.” A nostalgic smile crossed her face. “Whenever my mother made it she’d make something else for me.”
I came and stood next to John. “What are you getting at?” I asked him, though I had a feeling I already knew.
“If everyone knew you didn’t like them and wouldn’t eat any, then the poison wasn’t meant for you. It was Bradley they were trying to kill all along.”
“If that’s supposed to make me feel any better, it doesn’t.”
“Mrs. Brissart! Oh, I’m so sorry.” John took her hand. “Sometimes I forget not to be a policeman.” He turned to Jim. “We better get going.” He took his coat again and went to the front door. “I’ll see you later, Alex.”
With that, both detectives exited the house leaving four bewildered faces.
After wishing Mrs. Brissart a good trip again, I left just as Stuart and his parents arrived back. After exchanging a few words with them, I went back to my office. It was almost lunchtime and in addition to hunger pains, I felt a pinch of guilt at not being in much lately to help out. Maybe I could talk my sister into going out for something to eat before we continued with our work.
Sam looked up. “Hi. Have you been with Mrs. Brissart all this time?”
“Yes.” I filled Sam in on all the latest developments. I took a sheet of paper from Sam’s computer printer. “I need to make a list. Maybe that’ll put things in some kind of order.”
“Okay.” Sam leaned across the desk.
I wrote down Bradley’s name and drew a line down the middle of the page. “First column, possible suspects and the next column is motives.”
“Okay. Put Kendra down,” Sam said.
“Kendra? She was beside herself with grief last night.”
“But didn’t you tell me at one point that she’d taken acting lessons?”
“Yeah. I think she’s been taking some classes and she mentioned combining acting with her teaching.”
Sam gave me a knowing look. “Then last night could have been an act for your benefit. She knows you’re hot and heavy with the detective in charge. And she’s left the state for Vermont.”
“New Hampshire.”
“Whatever. Maybe you should find out if John knows about that.”
“He does,” I explained. “But he doesn’t suspect her.”
“Yeah, but he did suspect Mrs. Brissart and we know he’s off base there, so put Kendra down.” Sam gestured to the piece of paper.
I reluctantly wrote down Kendra’s name in the first column. “So what’s the motive for her?”
Sam got up and paced a bit between her desk and the window, her long legs covering the distance in a few steps. “Lover’s quarrel? Act of passion?”
I shook my head. “Samantha, I don’t think people walk around with cyanide on the off chance that they might get mad at their beloved. And killing someone over a little tiff, honestly.”
“How do you know it was a little tiff? It could have been a major blowup. We may never know. Don’t her family ties go back to Bradley’s?”
“You’re way off base here. She didn’t even seem all that interested in the whole thing.”
“You only have her word on that. Maybe she knows more than she says,” Sam suggested.
I tapped my fingers on the table while I pondered this theory. “Yes, I see your point. And you need to put a jar of M&Ms on your desk.” My siste
r pulled open her desk drawer and tossed a small bag at me.
“Gee, thanks.” I smiled. “I think better when my brain has chocolate. You know, Kendra pretends to not know what Bradley found out, but how do we know that’s true? She was there with him right before he died. It would have been easy for her to drop some poison on the cookies on her way out. But she seemed so sincere,” I said feeling very gullible at having been taken in by the young woman. “What would she get out of it? Killing him, I mean. Nothing, no money, as far as we know. I wonder if Bradley had a will.”
“Good point. Maybe she got nothing out of it but her freedom from an abusive relationship.”
“Samantha Daniels! You’re really stretching things here. Who said Bradley was abusive? He was a lovely young man.”
“Who says? His grandmother? Mom thinks my two are absolute angels, but try getting them up in the morning or talking to Kendall when she’s in one of her moods. And don’t even get me started on Henry.”
“You leave Henry alone,” I said with a protective voice. “Henry’s perfect.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, your perfect little Henry decided to wash rocks last night. Do you know what he used to rinse them?”
I had to smile. My nephew loved washing rocks. He could sit out in the driveway for hours with a pile of rocks around him that he picked up from the yard, meticulously washing, then rinsing, and finally placing them in the sun to dry. Once clean they would be returned to the yard until it was time to wash them again. And only Henry knew when that time came.
“I’ll tell you what he used to rinse them. He used my Swedish crystal bowl that Michael’s parents brought back for me last summer. I had some lovely scented potpourri in it and he dumped that on the end table in the living room. Now do you think he’s perfect?”
“Is the bowl broken?”
“Well, no,” Sam said looking like someone who lost the battle.
“See? Now getting back to Bradley, Chantal thought he was wonderful, too. Could all these people be wrong?”
“Hey, Ted Bundy seemed like one helluva nice guy if you asked the right people. Maybe Kendra just didn’t want something known—either about the history or about her relationship.”