“She made her feelings clear the night she gave me the letter. She was . . . well, seductive is the only word I can think of. I was caught off guard. I wanted to get that letter away from her because I couldn’t be sure how she might use it. I didn’t want to reject her outright and send her away in a huff. So I . . . well, I played along.” He gave Annie a straight, hard look. “But I was only trying to make Delia lay off the girl, Annie—I swear it. I have no romantic feelings toward Greta. Anything else is a product of her imagination.”
“I believe you,” Annie assured him. “I told both the doctor and the sheriff that Mrs. Crow had nothing to do with it, and that Delia may have sent Greta to collect the seeds. I also told them that Greta wasn’t happy with the way Delia was treating her.” She took a breath. “You need to tell the sheriff that Greta imagined that you were attracted to her, Adam. That could be another reason for her doing it.”
“No!” Adam shook his head firmly. “If I tell him that, I’ll have to tell him about the letter Greta gave me—and what’s in it. Don’t you see how complicated this is, Annie? If the sheriff decides that my wife was murdered, Greta isn’t the only one who will be under suspicion.”
“Don’t, Adam.” Annie put her hands over her ears. “Please, please don’t.”
He leaned forward, his eyes on hers. “I had an opportunity, too, you know. My store is next door to Purley’s. I could simply step out my back door, gather some of those poison hemlock seeds, and put them in the envelope in the drawer of the table beside Delia’s bed. The letter from Simpson—and the fact that I have it—gives me plenty of reason to poison my wife.”
“I don’t see how,” Annie protested helplessly. “You didn’t know anything about the hemlock seeds—about how Delia died, I mean—until the doctor told you.”
“That’s only my say-so,” Adam said. “I could just as easily be lying.” His voice was flat, expressionless. “What’s more, our relationship may come out. Yours and mine. The other night in the stable, Greta gave me to understand that she knows about us—at least, that she knows I’d been coming to see you. She wasn’t going to say anything to Delia because you’ve been a friend to her. But if she’s pushed, maybe she’ll change her mind. If she tells them about Simpson’s letter . . .” He shoved his chair back and stood up. “I have to go to the telegraph office, Annie. Clarissa needs to know what’s happened. I’m sure she’ll get on the first train out of Galveston tomorrow.”
Annie stood, too, and went to the kitchen door with him. “I’ll be glad to keep Caroline here, Adam. She’s no bother at all, and she likes to play at making lace with the girls in the workroom.” She managed a smile. “Actually, she’s quite good. Her little fingers are nimble, and she understands the patterns.”
“Could you?” He sounded relieved. “That would be a big help. I’m going to give Greta a couple of weeks’ salary and let her go. Now that I’m alone in the house, it’s not a good idea to have her around.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “The next few weeks are going to be hell, Annie. But we’ll come through it somehow, I promise you. Don’t give up heart.”
He bent and kissed her quickly and left.
• • •
ADAM thought he was prepared for what was to come, but he could not have been more wrong.
Caroline was staying with Annie, and Adam had closed his tack and feed store until after Delia’s funeral. Clarissa was to arrive on the evening train, and he would meet her at the station. He had already made the necessary arrangements with Lloyd Butler, the local undertaker, and Reverend Childers, the pastor at the Congregational church Delia had sometimes attended. But the funeral couldn’t take place until Dr. Grogan completed the autopsy and released Delia’s body for burial. And he still hadn’t been able to get in touch with Simpson. The man seemed to have disappeared.
Burial. Adam still couldn’t quite believe what had happened. He and Delia had not made each other happy in recent years, but she was still his wife, and the thought that he was about to bury a beautiful young woman whom he had once loved filled him with a deep, dark ache that seemed to invade his very bones. Why had this happened? How had it happened?
This afternoon, he was wandering aimlessly around the house, looking sadly at Delia’s decorative touches—doilies, embroidered pillows, pictures on the walls—remembering the happy times of their marriage, and regretting his many shortcomings as a husband. Perhaps, if he had paid her the attention she needed, she wouldn’t have fallen for Simpson. If he had loved her more, spent more time with—
His guilty reflections were interrupted by a knock at the front door, and he opened it to Dr. Grogan.
“Good afternoon, Adam,” the doctor said. “If you have a moment . . .”
“By all means,” Adam replied. “Come in, Grogan. There’s coffee in the kitchen.” He and the doctor had a friendly acquaintance that went back to Adam’s mother’s last illness some ten years before, when the doctor had come to see her almost every day for a month.
The old man followed Adam to the kitchen, where he sat down at the oilcloth-covered kitchen table and hung his brown derby hat on the back of his chair. He was silent while Adam filled their cups and took the chair across the table from him. Finally, he spoke.
“I finished your wife’s autopsy a little while ago, Adam.” There was a deep sympathy in his faded blue eyes. “Given the physical evidence and the seeds I found in the
