Beatrice Young 7- The Paw-sitively Cheerful Poisoner Page 4

  “I heard a rumor once that Ann was adopted,” Beatrice said, looking at Matthew. “This is a slim lead, but it’s something.” She turned back to the volunteer. “Do you know what might’ve become of these kids?”

  “Well, the record doesn’t indicate that this Ann is deceased, or that she’s been married. So that’s all we have here, but,” she added, with a devilish look, “I happen to have a friend who worked in child services around that time. Her name’s Stacy Campbell. She might have some memory of the case.” She wrote down a phone number on the back of a blank card and handed it to Beatrice. “Just mention my name. We go way back.”

  Back in the car, Beatrice dialed the number on her phone. An elderly woman answered and she seemed delighted to invite them over. With the help of Beatrice’s smartphone, they found her house in an outer suburb. Stacy lived in a neat one–story home with blue siding and a white picket fence. Crocuses poked up in the gardens and an American flag hung over the front door.

  Stacy answered the door on the first ring. She had dyed sandy–blonde short hair and sported a mint–green shirt with a fish on it, along with large hoop earrings. She smiled, her teeth white and straight, and ushered them in without question.

  “Thanks for stopping by. Please sit down,” she said as she led them into her neat living room. Everything in it, from the floors to the sofas to the carpets, was uniformly beige, though there seemed to be random fish paraphernalia here and there—paintings, sculptures, and even an ashtray, shaped like a fish, that looked like it’d never been used. Beatrice felt nervous about letting the cats into such a space, but Stacy assured them that she adored pets and didn’t mind in the least. Bee pointed out a corner free of breakables and fixed the three of them with a stern look.

  “So you want to talk about Ann,” Stacy said, returning a minute later with a tray of lemonade and cookies. She placed it on the dark wood coffee table. “She was never part of my caseload, but I heard a fair bit about her from Lorrie, who passed away a couple of years ago. She was Ann’s social worker and my dear friend.”

  Beatrice leaned forward. “I heard Ann was placed in a foster home.”

  “Indeed she was. And she was a well–liked child. She had friends at the foster home. She was smart, did well at school, and got along with her classmates. Seemed to have some pretty good foster homes and when she was about seven she was adopted by one of the families. They never formally adopted her but they gave her their last name—Smith.”

  “Ah, so that’s why her name was changed,” Beatrice exclaimed.

  “Yes, exactly.”

  Beatrice settled back into the beige sofa beside Matthew. She caught his eye and, remembering that this was a possible date, crossed her legs in what she hoped was an alluring way, then was immediately distracted by an errant tan paw reaching up to bat at the glass ashtray. Beatrice swatted at the offending paw with one foot and received a glowering stare from Petunia.

  “Everything sounds pretty normal,” Matthew commented. “Was that it?”

  “Oh goodness no,” Stacy said, pushing the plate towards them so they could help themselves to cookies. “Everyone around Stacy believed that she was a model child. But Lorrie knew the real truth and because we were best friends she confessed as much to me. Ann spent most of her time in one home with many other children before she found a permanent situation. She became close to the two youngest children there—a boy and a girl. They were sickly kids and everyone loved Ann for taking such good care of them. She would read to them, help them with their homework, push them on the swings. And then came the annual trip to the seaside.”

  “The two children became seriously ill during that trip and after some tests, it was revealed that they’d been poisoned. With the foster mother’s sleeping pill prescription no less, which she thought she’d kept safely locked away. Ann hadn’t been obvious—neither of the children accused her, they didn’t seem to be aware of what she’d done to them. But, they found crushed pills among her possessions. The whole thing was hushed up—they didn’t want Ann to be burdened with that reputation. I suppose they thought she was just acting out, broken home and all that.

  “They sent Ann to a different foster home with no other kids in it. The parents were experienced caregivers of troubled children and they took Ann on as their personal project, even going so far as to give her their last name. The two children Ann had poisoned stopped suffering from the mysterious sickness that had plagued them for months and made a full recovery after she left.”

  Beatrice was trying to digest all this new information. “And the new foster parents never reported anything … unusual?”

  “Not that I know of. They seemed to be very protective of Ann. If anything went awry, they may have chosen to deal with it themselves. People were very protective of her; after all, she was really good at making people believe the best about her, despite evidence to the contrary.”

  “Matthew, I think this is exactly the evidence we need to show the sheriff,” Beatrice said in an undertone. “It indicates previous history of poisoning, no?” She turned back to Stacy. “How can we get a record of the report about Ann’s poisoning?”

  “Not a problem. My niece works in admin in social services. I’m sure she’d be able to dig up old case files. You’ll need permission to see them, though.”

  “Not a problem,” Beatrice said. “Our sheriff can be quite persuasive.”

  The next hour was a whirlwind of calling the sheriff, talking him through Stacy’s story, and mulling over how to secure Ann’s file. Then there was a visit to Stacy’s niece to pick–up the file, once the sheriff had pulled the necessary strings. Beatrice was so excited they’d made progress that she forgot all about impressing Matthew or anything romantic at all. They drove home with the rock radio station on full blast, driving just under the speed limit, thrilled by their success. They were one very important step closer to uncovering Ann Smith for who she really was.

  6

  If Matthew and Beatrice were expecting a hero’s welcome when they got back to the sheriff’s office, they were gravely mistaken. The atmosphere was grim. The sheriff sat behind his desk with his hat off and hands folded. In front of him was Hannah. She turned around as they entered, her expression serious.

  “Oh dear. What’s happened?” Beatrice asked immediately.

  “Janet just passed away,” she said thickly.

  The sheriff looked up at Beatrice. “You have the file?”

  Wordlessly, she handed it over. He thumbed through it, scanning the social worker’s notes. “Poisoning,” he said in a flat tone. He picked up his desk phone and dialed a number. “June? Hi, it’s Sheriff Roy. Listen, I’m gonna need a body exhumed first thing tomorrow. I’ll get the paperwork to your office now, okay? Yeah, sorry about the late hour. We’ve got a bit of a serious case. I’ll explain tomorrow. Okay then, goodnight.”

  He replaced the phone in the cradle. Beatrice and Matthew stood awkwardly like two kids who’d been called into the principal’s office. The cats lingered at their feet, as if sensing the tense atmosphere. “Where’s Ann now?” Beatrice asked.

  “The deputy’s got her under surveillance. Ann found Janet dead at her home. She was coming in for a routine visit. She and Doctor Saunders dealt with the ambulance, then the removal of the body. Thankfully, I was able to intervene. They were going to take her right to the funeral home, but I had the body taken to the morgue instead. Once we have her parents exhumed and tested, we can compare the results.” He shook his head. “I know Ann was young when she did it, but what I don’t understand is how someone who’s poisoned two young kids becomes a nurse without anybody taking a second look.” He sighed. “Alright, that’s all I need tonight. I’ll see you all in the morning.”

  Matthew drove Beatrice home. It was dark by then. The sky was flooded with milky stars. The cats were asleep in the backseat.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Matthew said as they pulled into her driveway. The barn house loomed in the trees, lit f
aintly by lanterns on either side of the front door.

  “Not a fan of all this death happening lately,” Beatrice sighed. “Or maybe it’s this case. We’ve investigated some illegal things together but on balance, no one died.”

  “Except the mayor. And we had some close calls with those bombs, people smashing up your house…”

  “Yes well, but none of those cases involved three people in Ashbrook dying within weeks of each other. If Ann did it, why would she play with people’s lives like that?”

  “I haven’t got a clue,” Matthew said, his blue eyes serious. “It sounds like she had a hard childhood.”

  “Maybe, but plenty of people have bad childhoods and they don’t go around poisoning folks later. I guess what bothers me is that she’s always seemed so sweet, so patient, so trustworthy. And now all this?”

  “Bee, we don’t know the truth yet.” Matthew took her hand in his. His rough fingers slid between hers. “Until we do, it’s impossible to know what really happened.”

  Beatrice looked into his face—lined, a little tired, but still filled with its usual understanding. “So I guess we didn’t go on a date today, did we?”

  Matthew tipped back his head and laughed. “No, we really didn’t. I swear I spend more time casing houses, visiting records offices, driving to interview people, and buying the sheriff coffee than I do going to the movies, dating, or whatever ordinary people do for fun.”

  “You’re right. We haven’t even had one of our Netflix and brunch Sundays in ages.” Beatrice sighed and stretched her legs out in front of her.

  “You seem antsy,” Matthew said.

  “I guess so. I’ve been feeling restless lately. Restless and unfocused. I haven’t done anything to open up my private detective business. I’m not doing anything innovative at the café. I find myself just staring out the window, looking at nothing. You don’t think I’m going senile, do you?”

  “Well, that would explain a lot,” Matthew joked. “Maybe you need a change in your life.”

  “Yes, but what? Everything is perfect. Supposedly.” Beatrice looked away again, lost in thought.

  Matthew followed her gaze, but she wasn’t looking at anything in particular. Beatrice was usually upbeat, practical, a bit sarcastic. Lately she’d seemed sort of lost in the clouds. And that, more than anything, worried Matthew. Should he take her to the doctor? He decided to wait it out, watch her a little more closely. Hopefully it was nothing more complicated than a case of the blues.

  7

  The bodies were exhumed on Monday and the coroner’s office had tests performed on all three members of the Robinson family that afternoon. Beatrice couldn’t have wished for a speedier process. It helped that the sheriff had some long–standing contacts. On the other hand, the test results took days to come in.

  Meanwhile, Beatrice performed penance for her recent inaction by throwing herself into her work. She booked a consultation to get a new custom display case, dashed off a new edition of the newsletter, and went through all their industrial mixers and other kitchen equipment with Zoe to see what needed updating or repair. She placed a long call to their primary food supplier to complain about the less–than–fresh produce they’d been getting lately. She even fired one of the waitresses she’d been meaning to fire, put up a new job ad, and did interviews.

  The distraction staved off some of her unease. Most mornings she didn’t have time to do anything except make coffee and dash out the door. Most evenings she didn’t have energy to do anything except fall into bed. The cats were behaving themselves extraordinarily well, as if they were worried about their owner and didn’t want to put any extra stress on her. Hamish stopped trying to sit on her head while she slept, Lucky was much gentler with his usual nudges and yowling for food in the morning, and even Petunia stopped trying to escape out the front door, to seek the neighborhood tomcats. Instead, the cats did a lot of sitting around, eyes saucer–wide, watching her every movement.

  The test results finally came in on a dull Friday afternoon. Beatrice was trying to stave off listlessness by doing jumping jacks in her office. The cats were crouched in a corner, eyes narrowed, not liking all this sudden movement. Her cell phone rang.

  “Bee, results are in,” came the sheriff’s gruff voice. “Found morphine and atropine in all three of them.”

  “That’s exactly what Betty said Ann was experimenting with in nursing school!” Beatrice exclaimed. “She liked waking them up and putting them to sleep—really long sleeps. I guess the leopard hasn’t changed her spots.”

  “Yes, well the levels found in their bodies were definitely way more than they’d been prescribed—fatal levels, in fact. The problem is that we don’t have a prescription for these substances. No one saw Ann injecting them either. We need proof, Bee.”

  “Easy. I’ll just call around to the pharmacies. Someone must remember her putting in an order.”

  Beatrice hung up the phone. Her computer stared at her. It seemed to say: you have a job, Beatrice. Don’t go calling a million pharmacies and waste your afternoon.

  And for the first time in Beatrice’s history, she actually resented her job. Why should she worry about budgets and display cases and staffing when people were dying in Ashbrook? That seemed like a far more important issue. Petunia, who was sitting right by her keyboard, placed a paw on the mouse, which automatically minimized her budget spreadsheet.

  “Giving me permission, huh?” Beatrice said, patting the silky–soft cat. Petunia closed her beautiful blue eyes and purred loudly. “Well, you’re the boss, applesauce. Sleuthing it is.”

  As it turned out, there were way more pharmacies in Ashbrook and surrounding area than Beatrice ever imagined. And all the major ones in town and the surrounding communities hadn’t received any orders for either morphine or atropine. After an hour of calling, Beatrice slumped back in her chair. Zoe came in with a steaming cup of tea.

  “What’s up, boss?” she asked, setting the mug by the keyboard. “You look stressed.”

  “I think I’m having a three–quarter–life crisis,” Beatrice muttered, putting a hand over her eyes.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Listen, I thought I knew all the pharmacies around here. I googled them even, but I’ve called every one. Ugh, unless Ann brought the drugs with her from Manchester…”

  “There’s one I bet you haven’t checked,” Zoe said, plunking herself down in an easy chair and picking at the rips in her jeans. “There’s a tiny convenience story slash pharmacy in Waitsfield. Doubt it’s on the Internet, or in the phone book even. It tends to be the place you go if you want stuff without a prescription. In high school I knew tons of underage kids who bought smokes or pills there. It’s just like a tiny place that some old lady runs out of the first floor of her house. Mrs. Bennett. I’m surprised no one’s caught onto it yet.”

  “Thanks, but I’m some old lady,” Beatrice said dryly.

  “She’s older than you.”

  “Right. Okay well, you don’t happen to have her phone number or something, do you?”

  “Nah. She doesn’t have a phone. You gotta go out there.” Lucky sauntered up to Zoe and jumped onto her lap. She petted him absently. “Bee, are you alright? You’ve been really kinda airy–fairy the last few days.”

  Beatrice grimaced. “Yeah, I’m alright. I’ve just been kind of down in the dumps, I guess. No real reason why.”

  “Is it because of Matthew?”

  “What?”

  “You know, because you guys were all like ‘I love you’ and then nothing changed?”

  “You’re too smart for your own good,” Beatrice said, eyeing her pastry chef. “Maybe that’s it. I just have this feeling of being … stuck. It might be just to do with Matthew. It might be bigger than that.”

  Zoe frowned. “Maybe you should ask Mrs. Bennett for something when you’re at the pharmacy.”

  “Maybe.” Beatrice sighed. “Will you find the place on my map for me? I might as well g
o now, seeing as I’m getting nothing done this afternoon except for some cardio.”

  Zoe pinned the pharmacy’s location on her map application and Beatrice headed out. It was a springy day—the blue sky was full of fat, bouncy clouds and there was the distinct scent of rich earth and new green things growing. The sun slanting through her front windshield was buttery warm. Beatrice slid on some shades and cranked on the local pop radio station. Lucky and Petunia were in a crate in the back but Bee let Hamish sit up front with her. Cars didn’t faze him in the least—in fact, he had a dog–like enjoyment of vehicles. If Beatrice rolled down the window, he would have happily stuck his head out to feel the breeze in his whiskers.

  The pharmacy was only about a half hour’s drive from downtown Ashbrook but it felt a world away. Waitsfield was a small town with a couple of spread–out stores and ramshackle houses amidst the tangled forest. Beatrice had been there before when she was investigating a case of extortion against her friend Nathan.

  Mrs. Bennett’s store was at the end of a rutted gravel driveway that climbed a steep bank before revealing an old three–story house that, at one point, must have been really impressive. But now its gingerbread trim was rotting, the windows were almost opaque with dust and dirt, and the pillars in front were splitting so that the porch sagged alarmingly. There was no sign that a store was inside, except for a couple of faded, torn posters shoved in a bay window at the side that advertised cigarette brands and lotto tickets.

  Beatrice parked and let the cats out of their crate. They scampered ahead and through an open door at the side. There was a shrill screech and then a short, little woman came dashing out, broom in hand, as the cats ran for their lives back down the steps.

  “Those your animals?” growled the woman, who looked like she could be the owner, Mrs. Bennett. She was the stereotype of a “little old lady.” She had a bad perm and steel gray hair and she wore a baggy sweatshirt with stirrup pants. The lines etched in her face gave the impression of a permanent scowl.