Once out the back door, I lifted the plastic tumbler to my nose. Even with the lid on, I could smell something herbal enough to drive buzzards off roadkill. Some things I would miss about Kate when she moved out; some I would not.
I poured the tea out the window at the first stoplight I came to.
Heat radiated off the blacktop as I drove away from Houston. We needed rain. Thanks to a late-summer drought, the usually vibrant green medians were parched brown stripes stretching into the horizon. As I sped farther from the city, the traffic thinned and I savored the expansive landscape still undefiled by strip malls and Wal-Marts. With the cruise control set at seventy, I considered what I’d learned from hacking into Terry’s computer. Seems Ben had been the chief suspect in the death of his wife. She’d died at home fifteen years ago, after swallowing a cold medicine laced with cyanide. Was it coincidence husband and wife died from the same poison? I didn’t think so, and I had no doubt Sergeant Kline would agree with me—if he had an agreeable bone in his body.
The Shade police had taken Ben into custody right after Cloris’s death, but he’d been released the same day. Seems no direct evidence connected him to her murder. He was questioned several times in the months that followed, and from what I could discern from the brief reports I’d read, he was their only suspect, his apparent motive being a large insurance policy taken out on Cloris the year before.
But even though I’d learned where Ben lived before working for us and heard about his troubled past, I still had no idea if he left any family behind. But I intended to meet them and offer them any help they might require if, in fact, they existed. As I drove deeper into rural America, I thoroughly convinced myself I was doing what Daddy would have done by paying my respects to an employee’s family. You’d have thought I’d never heard a word about the road to hell.
An hour later I sat across from Sheriff Stanley Nemec, his battered wormwood desk between us. The ceiling fan churned above, crying out for WD-40 every few seconds. A chaw of tobacco bulged in the man’s left cheek, and his gray-streaked mustache gave way to a quarter-inch stubble on his cheeks and chin.
After pressing his tobacco lower between his cheek and gum with a fat finger, Nemec said, “Died a complicated death, Mrs. Cloris Grayson did. Someone went to plenty of trouble.”
“And you’re certain Ben killed her?” I said.
“A lead-pipe cinch. He had plenty of time and plenty of reason to do the deed. What chaps my hide is that if you’re persuaded to kill someone, you shoot ’em and get it over with. Nail them in the back, if you can’t look ’em in the eye. Only a coward slips poison in stuff that’s supposed to make you feel better.”
“Could she have committed suicide?” I asked.
“I considered the possibility and rejected the notion ten seconds later. Why go to all the trouble of taking cold capsules apart and packing them with cyanide? Hell, she coulda just swallowed the stuff.” Nemec leaned forward and spit in the paper cup he held.
“I see your point. But could anyone besides Ben have tampered with the medicine?”
“I suppose, but no one had a motive ’cept for him. Course, he had himself a convenient alibi. Doing carpenter work up on Ridge Road in front of six men the day she died. But I always said he coulda snuck that poison in anytime.”
“There was no real proof he murdered her, though?”
“No signed confession. No fingerprints on the medicine bottle. No cyanide in the shed. None of that. So, much as I tried, I couldn’t pin anything on him.”
“But you still think he killed her?”
“Sure as hell’s hot.”
“Did Ben have any relatives besides Cloris?”
“They had no kids, and he had no other kin I know about, but he remarried not long ago. Local widow named Ruth Sawyer. Fine person, too. What she saw in him is the real mystery here.”
“He had a wife?”
“Yeah. They was
“You disliked Ben?” I said, thinking it odd that a newly married man would work so far from home. Had he come back here on his days off?
“Disliked Ben?” the sheriff was saying. “Nah, I hated him. Made his life hell after he murdered Cloris. Figured if I couldn’t stick him in jail, I’d make him feel like a cell might not be such a bad idea. Better than livin’ with me hounding him day and night. To this very day, I don’t understand why he stayed in this town.”
“Did he ever offer an explanation?”
Nemec nodded and spit again. “Oh, sure. Told me every chance he got how he’d never leave until he proved me wrong. Then he goes and marries the widow of the guy who sold him all that insurance on Cloris. I considered that more than a little fishy.”
“But his wife’s death was years ago. Did Ben even know Ruth Sawyer then?”
“Course. Everyone knows everyone here in Shade.” I’m sure they did. “Seems Ben’s wife is the person I came here to find. Could you tell me where she lives?”
“I already broke the news to her after HPD faxed the first report yesterday. She’s pretty tore up, so you best leave her alone.” He leaned back in the chair, his gut hanging over his belt. Rusty-brown tobacco stains dotted his dingy shirt, along with whatever he’d had for lunch. Something with mustard, I decided.
“I want to speak to her, so if you don’t mind—”
“I do mind. I don’t want you bothering the woman. She’s been widowed twice now.”
I rose. “Since everyone knows everyone here, I suppose plenty of other folks in Shade could point me in the right direction.”
Nemec stood and placed his chunky hands on the desk, his jowled face dark with anger. “Don’t go bringing up that murdering no-good’s name around my town. Just go back to Houston and leave us be.”
“I wouldn’t have to bring up his name if you’d simply help me out,” I replied sweetly, countering his agitation with a calmness that surprised me. For some reason, I had gained an advantage with this man, though I wasn’t sure why.
He stared at me for a second, his lips pursed, eyes narrowed. “Okay. I’ll tell you where Ruth lives if you have to know. But you’ll need to answer me one thing first. The fax from HPD said Ben was poisoned, nothing else. Exactly how did that son of a bitch get his?”
“Cyanide,” I answered quietly.
His mouth spread in an unpleasant smile, revealing stained, uneven teeth. “Finally got a taste of his own medicine, huh?”
Not long after I left the sheriff’s office, I sat down with Ruth Grayson in the small front room of her one-story wood-frame home. Our comfortable twin chairs with their worn upholstery offered a view out a large picture window. A round oak table covered with lace doilies sat between us.
After I’d offered my condolences and told Mrs. Grayson what I could remember of Ben’s last day on earth —which was precious little, unfortunately—she wanted to fix me tea, even offered to cook me an early supper, but I persuaded her I needed nothing more than time to talk about Ben.
Twisting a blue tissue with arthritic fingers, she said, “I still can’t believe he’s gone.”
“I know this is difficult,” I said, “but I visited the sheriff first and he was telling me that—”
“Oh, I know what he said, that my Ben was a killer. That he murdered Cloris. Isn’t that right, miss?”
“Well... yes.”
“Let me set you straight, then. Ben loved Cloris with all his heart. That’s one reason I didn’t marry him when he first asked me. Her ghost was still perched on his shoulder. The man missed her something awful.”
“And this is the woman he was accused of killing?”
“Don’t make sense, do it? But Miss Rose, I’m not sure Ben would be happy with me talking about Cloris. That was his business, like he always told me.”
“Okay, let’s talk about Ben, then. Why are you so certain he was innocent?”
“You married, Miss Rose?”
“I have been, yes.”
“Because if you’ve been married, then you know that if you live with a man, see how he does you day in and day out, how he handles what the Lord sends him, well... you know if he’s a liar. Ain’t that true, miss?”
