Beware False Profits Part 29

Since the library was on the oval, just a stone's throw from our house, I didn't see a problem. "I don't know why not."

"We're doing our final project together in science. We picked each other for partners." She paused. "Everybody knows."

I nodded, not sure what to say.

"The Meanies are so shallow." She started to leave, but even with a fever I couldn't let it go at that.

"Mind telling me what you mean?"

"Well, they were making fun of me. So I told them I like Tyler better than I like them, anyway. Except for Tara and Maddie, who are still okay."

Middle school seemed a little early to risk exorcism from the popular crowd. I was delighted. I thought the poor but worthy Peace Corps volunteer might still have an edge over the greedy brain surgeon. Even if the brain surgeon happened to have Kentucky Derby contenders in his stable.

"So, you and the Meanies are kaput?" I asked.

"No, now they're acting like it was all so yesterday. Carlene invited me to spend the night at her house next weekend."

"Well, sometimes when you stand up for yourself, things work out nicely."

"Really? I stood up for myself in English cla.s.s. I told Mr. Sammons that the book he wants us to read is dumb, and we ought to be able to pick one that's interesting."

"I bet the dumb word didn't help your cause, right?"

"He told me to write an extra page about why the book didn't meet my high standards. So now I have more work to do."

"Win some, lose some."

She rolled her eyes, and I tried not to smile.

I dozed until Deena came back in to tell me she and Tyler were leaving and Teddy was upstairs trying to train the guinea pigs. I hadn't realized Tyler was going to escort Deena to the library. He came in to say h.e.l.lo. Once again I thought what a nice-looking boy he was with his brown hair and eyes.

They were gone, but for some reason every time I closed my eyes I pictured Tyler in different settings. At the beach. Repeating the Cub Scout promise.

On horseback.

When I gazed at the photos of Chad after his memorial service, I thought about the boys my daughters were growing up with, how ordinary they seemed. Just like Chad.

Now I realized where that a.s.sociation had come from. The photo of Chad Sutterfield in middle school, which was the missing horseback photo, had strongly reminded me of Tyler Wagner.

I sat up and ran my fingers through my rumpled hair. "You're an idiot, Aggie."

The resemblance to Tyler had been clear enough that after one quick glance I'd almost made the connection that day.

Chad Sutterfield was Tyler Wagner's biological father.

I rested my aching head in my hands. Maura had disappeared long enough to s.n.a.t.c.h the photo that afternoon. Now I realized why Maura might have the ultimate motivation for stealing it.

That very afternoon hadn't Cilla told me that Maura was exactly the kind of woman Chad liked?

Another piece clicked into place. Now I knew why Betsy's comment about the punch bowl had pinged around my aching head with such vengeance. Betsy had said that most of the time when people expect to see one thing, they don't notice it's something else entirely. She had almost pa.s.sed the new punch bowl off as the old one. It was still entirely possible that n.o.body else would ever notice the difference.

Maura had been married to Joe Wagner. She had given birth to a son. Tyler looked like neither mother nor father, but wasn't that true of many children? The combinations of genes produced something entirely unique? Expecting to see Joe's son, Joe's son was what people saw. Probably even Joe had been fooled.

But what if he hadn't been? What if Joe had discovered the truth and walked out on Maura. Maybe that was the garbled message from his cell phone. Maybe Joe was so furious, so betrayed, he was never coming home.

I dismissed this immediately. Even my poor fried brain knew this couldn't be right. Joe loved Tyler. He would never walk out on the boy he had raised as his own.

So how did this tie in? Tyler's parentage was interesting, but what did it prove? I'd seen statistics that claimed more than 10 percent of all children are conceived outside of wedlock, unbeknownst to the fathers of record. If that was true, Joe was in good company. Maybe Maura's lies amounted to fraud, but I didn't think this was a crime that would interest Detective Roussos.

Then what about murder? The police thought Chad had died in a fire set by his own hand. But what if this wasn't true? What if Joe had set it out of revenge, trapping Chad inside?

I shook my head in frustration. What proof did I have things hadn't happened exactly the way the police believed? I couldn't imagine Joe Wagner committing such a heinous crime.

No, if I told Roussos what I'd learned, he would tell me it didn't matter. My theory was only that, and there was no real crime connected to it.

Of course there was another person in the triangle.

What if Maura had killed Chad because he threatened to tell Joe the truth about Tyler? Maybe Chad finally figured out that Tyler was his and demanded his parental rights.

I threw that away, too. Why would a man as self-centered as Chad claim paternity, if with it came financial responsibility and child support payments?

No. If Chad was threatening to tell Maura, he wanted something in exchange for silence. A man who steals food from the poor and homeless is a man who won't blink at blackmail.

The telephone rang, and Lucy was on the other end. "You tried to call, didn't you?"

"The trumpeter in your mariachi band reported me, right?"

"Aggie, are you sick or just plain nuts?"

"As a matter of fact..." I launched into my woes, dispensed of them quickly, and moved on to my conversation with Cilla. I didn't feel comfortable telling Lucy my suspicions about Tyler. And she wasn't going to be any help figuring out Maura, because Lucy didn't know her.

"That reminds me," Lucy said when I finished. "Cilla called last night to say she thought she saw Joe poking around the ruins of the warehouse after work. But before she could get there to confront him, he disappeared."

I was surprised Cilla hadn't mentioned this to me during our phone call, but I guess I had upset her too much. "If the Joe sitings continue, we'll have to tell her about Rube."

"Knowing Rube, he was poking around for clues."

We talked a little about the house, then Lucy told me to take a nap.

I had to make one more call before I did.

I hated to involve Roussos at this point, but I had promised my husband I would keep Roussos in the loop. And I had a question I still wanted an answer to. Possibly enough time had pa.s.sed and enough threads had been tied up that he would finally give it to me.

I don't know how long I waited before Roussos got to the phone. Teddy was still upstairs with Pepper and Cinnamon, and I'd had a three-Kleenex moment. But eventually Roussos picked up.

"Don't tell me you found a dead body in your attic," he said when he realized it was me.

"Like you'd be the one I'd call first."

"Yeah, I know. You'd only call me when the killer was standing behind you with a .45 and a machete. How about Joe Wagner? You got any leads on him? The man's warehouse burns down, and his warehouse manager dies in the blaze, but he doesn't come back, even for a day?"

"I can't help you there. But this is about the Wagners. Would you be interested if I told you I think Chad Sutterfield might have been the real father of Joe Wagner's son?"

He was silent a moment. "Okay, dazzle me. What makes you think so?"

I was encouraged. I played all the angles, pausing just once for a coughing fit. I finished on a gasp.

"And this would interest me why?" he asked. "We know Sutterfield started the fire in his office. That's a given."

"You're certain?"

"Without a doubt."

"I guess I can't interest you in buying this as a motive for Hazel's death?"

"Sutterfield killed Mrs. Kefauver because he was the father of Wagner's son?"

"I don't know. Maybe she figured it out. Maybe she was on to him, and he poisoned her. How was she poisoned? Was it something he might have put in her food?"

"You're getting better about slipping these questions in. I like it when people grow. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

I felt awful, but I smiled anyway, although I hoped he couldn't tell. "How can telling me hurt now? You're so sure you have the murderer. And he's dead. So what's the big deal?"

He was quiet long enough to give me hope. "Nicotine," he said at last. "Ring any bells for you?"

"Nicotine? Like cigarettes?" I thought for a moment. "She was supposed to be a secret smoker. Could she have smoked so much on the sly that it killed her?"

He gave a humorless laugh. "Not likely."

"So how does somebody get poisoned by nicotine?"

"It used to be easier. They sold it over the counter as a pesticide until they banned it in the 1990s. I hear it was good for aphids. But just to make your day I'll tell you it takes less nicotine than a.r.s.enic or strychnine to kill somebody."

"So what, did somebody sit on top of poor Hazel and feed her cigarette b.u.t.ts?"

"We're not completely clear. Anything else you want to know?"

"Anything else you'd like to tell me? Like whether you're sure Chad killed Hazel Kefauver, or the jury's still out?"

"Sure, I'll tell you something-"

I knew that tone. "Right. Stay out of your investigation, I know. I'll get back in touch when I've figured out how all your pieces fit together. Be looking for a way to put me on the payroll."

We hung up simultaneously.

I dissected what I'd learned. I was left with the feeling that Roussos was still investigating. Not only to figure out how Hazel ingested enough nicotine to die from it, but because he wasn't certain Chad had been the one to supply it. He had actually shared the name of the poison, which surprised me, but I thought, perhaps, he'd done it to see if it rang any bells.

Just as important, he had listened carefully when I told him that I thought Chad was Tyler's biological father. My opinion? Roussos was still collecting evidence and looking for motives.

"Nicotine." I tried to imagine the ways a lethal dose of nicotine might be delivered. We had cigarettes and chewing tobacco. We had aids like the patch for people who were trying to quit smoking. Sid had told me about the nicotini, a drink for people who didn't want to get off their barstools and go outside to light up. Something about soaking tobacco leaves in vodka and adding flavoring.

Yuck.

Could any of these delivery systems be ramped up to poison Hazel? Was there any reason to suspect that Brownie had access to nicotine in a form that might have killed her? Or Chad Sutterfield? Theoretically, I'd gotten involved to help our mayor, but the investigation had taken on a life of its own. Everything was jumbled in my head now. Joe's disappearance. Hazel's murder. The fire and Chad's death. Tyler's parentage. Nicotine?

For once I was sorry I was such an Internet idiot. There would be information about nicotine poisoning online, I was sure. But I didn't have the energy to go looking, nor did I want to deal with the consequences. Ed's computer is possessed. At the very least we need an exorcism.

I tried hard not to fall asleep, but when Junie came home, rhapsodizing about how quickly Rube was completing work on the Victorian, I shared a few perky sentences with her. Right before I closed my eyes.

20.

Teddy looks wonderful in rags. As the official family seam-stress Junie had made the Cinderella-in-the-ashes costume from fabric sc.r.a.ps and burlap. Since Rene and Teddy were the same size, Rene had worn it first. But I couldn't imagine anyone who could look more forlorn or pathetic than my own daughter.

I was so proud.

After dinner I enjoyed the bedraggled Teddy from across the room. "Promise you'll come home dressed like a princess so I can see that, too?"

"I wish you could go!"

To preserve the surprise, I hadn't been allowed to see my daughter in either costume. None of us had realized I wouldn't see her onstage, either.

I felt as sad as she did. "We'll watch the videotape, and you can tell me every little thing."

"I might never be a star again."

"You'll always be a star to me."

Teddy's not fooled by mushy mommy compliments. By the same token she's logical enough to realize that my coughing on the parents of her school friends won't win her any fans. Luckily she had her father, grandmother, and sister to applaud too loudly. By the time they left, she was reconciled to my absence.

I wasn't glad to see them go, but the silent house was more helpful than the medication my doctor had prescribed. I felt light-headed, and the world and its problems seemed one galaxy away. I didn't have to converse. I didn't even have to think. I could lie on the sofa and doze until they returned. Since the parents were putting on a cookies and juice reception after the play, I figured I had a couple of hours to wallow in my illness.

The telephone woke me. I searched for it under the afghan, but my sleep-befuddled brain wouldn't quite connect the ringing with the proper quadrant of the sofa. By the time I located it between two cus.h.i.+ons, I said h.e.l.lo as my caller was hanging up.

I was just as glad I was awake, because I needed to blow my nose again. Always the optimist, I thought if I kept trying, someday I'd be able to use my nostrils for something other than storage. I reached for the tissues only to find that I'd emptied the whole box during other futile attempts.

I was thirsty, anyway. I sat up, then I got gingerly to my feet. If possible, the medication was making me woozier. I wanted my money back.

In the kitchen I yanked a bottle of spring water out of the refrigerator and scouted for a new box of tissues in the pantry. When nothing turned up there, I squatted to look in the cupboard nearest the door and found a stash. Bless Ed, he had prepared for the worst.

I got to my feet too quickly, and a wave of dizziness swept over me. I grabbed the counter to steady myself, knocking a stack of newspapers and the key basket to the floor in the process. Congratulating myself for not breaking anything, I waited until I felt steadier, then holding on to the counter with one hand I gingerly lowered myself until I could reach the basket. One by one I picked up the keys and dropped them back inside. The papers could wait until the gang returned.