Murder Can Rain on Your Shower (14 page)

But while Robin seems like a very nice person, it isn’t

as if we ever palled around together, so I never

learned any of the details.’’

‘‘Nevertheless, in view of everything you’d heard

about the dead woman, I’m surprised that you didn’t

have any qualms about entering into a partnership

with her.’’

‘‘Don’t forget,’’ Grace retorted, her tone slightly de

fensive, ‘‘I was determined to close my mind to those stories about her. Besides, Bobbie Jean’s sexual esca

pades were one thing. But, to my knowledge, nobody’s

ever condemned her business ethics.’’

‘‘Let me ask you this,’’ I brought up then. ‘‘Is there

anyone else you’re aware of who may have had . . . uh . . . issues with Bobbie Jean?’’

Tilting her head back and lifting her eyes, Grace

pondered the question for a few seconds before re

sponding. ‘‘I’m not really tuned in to the local gossip, but not too long ago there was a rumor making the

rounds about this woman’s catching her husband and

Bobbie Jean in a . . . in a compromising situation—

and in the woman’s own bed, too. But this person

wasn’t at Ellen’s shower.’’

I jotted down the name anyway. Just in case the

results of the toxicology report—which Chief Porchow

could be revealing to the Lyntons at that very mo

ment—indicated a slow-acting poison, God forbid.

‘‘Did you happen to notice if anything of a suspi

cious nature occurred on Sunday? And I mean any

thing at all.’’

‘‘No, I didn’t,’’ Grace answered, appearing genu

inely apologetic.

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‘‘I think that about covers everything,’’ I said now.

‘‘But satisfy my curiosity before you go, okay? With all the animosity you felt toward Bobbie Jean, how

could you even consider being around her again?’’

‘‘I wanted to find out if the food at Silver Oaks was

as sensational as Lorraine claimed it was.’’ And then Grace grinned impishly. ‘‘No, seriously, I love Allison

and Wes, and I adore Mike, too.
Not
going was never

an option.’’

‘‘Am I correct in assuming that this was the first

time you’d been in Bobbie Jean’s company since you

and Karl sued her?’’

‘‘Yes. I’d always avoided her like a case of the

measles.’’

‘‘Well, I give you credit for having the stomach to so much as look at her again.’’

Another playful grin. ‘‘The credit belongs entirely

to Xanax. All 0.5 soothing little milligrams of it.’’

Chapter
13

Just minutes after Grace Banner had squeezed her

feet back into the offending oxfords and limped out

of my office, I heard from Allison.

‘‘Bobbie Jean was murdered,’’ she informed me in

a strained voice. ‘‘The poison was in her salad.’’

So
the
killer
was
somebody
who
was
at
Silver
Oaks
that
day
after
all!
I said a silent, ‘‘Thank you, God,’’

before asking, ‘‘Did Chief Porchow give you the name

of what was used?’’

‘‘It was something called monkshood. Are you fa

miliar with it?’’

‘‘No, I’m not.’’

‘‘I understand from the chief that it’s a plant of

some kind and that it grows pretty much all over the country, throughout the Northern Temperate Zone, in

fact. At any rate, it works very rapidly. It’s also ex

tremely lethal—it can even be absorbed by the skin.

Although, as I said, in this instance the monkshood

went into the salad. Whoever did this awful thing

shredded the leaves and then mixed them in with the rest of the greens.’’

‘‘Porchow bagged Bobbie Jean’s salad, I assume.’’

‘‘On Sunday he collected what remained of it. He told

us that initially he wasn’t certain that Bobbie Jean had been a crime victim, but he wasn’t convinced that she hadn’t been, either. And he believes in playing it safe, he said. At any rate, once it was established that she’d been murdered, the contents of the salad were analyzed,

and it was found to be the vehicle for the poison.’’

Now, there are hundreds of toxic substances out

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there—maybe thousands, for all I know. So it fre

quently takes weeks, even months, to identify what

did the job in any particular instance. That is, if it’s ever identified at all. Plus, regardless of its availability, monkshood isn’t your everyday poison of choice—not

like arsenic, say, or cyanide. ‘‘I’m surprised they were able to arrive at this monkshood so quickly,’’ I

commented.

‘‘Evidently it was Bobbie Jean herself who steered

the toxicologists in the right direction. On the way to the hospital she was trying very hard to communicate with the paramedics, so they removed her oxygen

mask for a moment. She brought her finger up to her ear and mumbled what sounded to one of the men

like ‘ringing,’ but he couldn’t be positive of this be

cause her speech was so slurred. And then she put

her finger just under her eye, and that time she said fairly clearly, ‘Green.’ The fellow thought she might be hallucinating, however, because Bobbie Jean’s eyes

were brown. Nevertheless, he spoke to Porchow about

what he’d heard, and the chief passed the information

on to the medical examiner. Well, it appears that both

tinnitus and yellow-green vision can occur with this

particular poison.’’

‘‘So now we know what killed Bobbie Jean.’’

I had no idea that I’d said this aloud until Allison repeated softly, ‘‘Yes, now we know. Incidentally,’’

she went on, ‘‘Wes and I weren’t sure you’d want us to say anything to the police about our enlisting your help on this, so we kept quiet about it. In order to provide you with as many facts as possible, though, I kept requesting that Chief Porchow elaborate on ev

erything—which, plainly, he did not appreciate—and

then I managed to jot down a decent portion of his explanations. I claimed I was taking notes because I’d

promised to fill in my son, who couldn’t be here today

and who had been very close to his aunt.’’

‘‘Good thinking,’’ I remarked admiringly.

‘‘It wasn’t actually a lie, either. I
did
promise Mike I’d call and tell him what the police had learned.’’

88

Selma
Eichler

‘‘What else did the chief have to say?’’

‘‘He had me go over the list of shower guests, quiz

zing me on whether there might have been some sort

of unpleasantness between Bobbie Jean and any of

the women.’’

‘‘And your response was . . . ?’’

‘‘That I wasn’t aware of anything like that.’’ Before

I could comment, Allison continued in a rush. ‘‘I just couldn’t bring myself to incriminate my friends, De

siree. Especially since in all likelihood there were oth

ers at the affair with a grievance against Bobbie Jean.

As I’ve told you before, my sister-in-law only talked to me about that sort of thing on a ‘need to know’

basis.’’ Allison paused here (most likely for breath) before adding, ‘‘Besides, there’s something else to

consider.’’

‘‘What’s that?’’

‘‘The Silver Oaks staff. I mentioned to you on Tues

day that Bobbie Jean could be very imperious when

the mood struck her and that this might have so en

raged one of the club’s employees that he or she

killed her.’’

While I figured that Allison was grasping at straws

here, I didn’t feel that anything would be gained by forcing her to face reality. Not yet, anyhow. So I very

thoughtfully refrained from pointing out that murder

was a pretty extreme response to somebody’s de

manding that her steak be more well done. But evi

dently, on reflection, Allison had reached this same

conclusion.

‘‘I have since come to recognize what a far-fetched

theory that is,’’ she admitted. ‘‘But there’s another possibility pertaining to Silver Oaks that does make

sense. Suppose Bobbie Jean had been having an affair

with someone who worked there—something that

would hardly be a shock to anyone who knew her.

Well, under certain circumstances, this lover might

have felt compelled to rid himself of her. For instance,

Bobbie Jean could have been threatening to tattle to

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the man’s wife about their liaisons. Of course, that’s only one example.’’

Now, it had been my intention all along to question

everyone on the Silver Oaks staff, particularly those who were working at the place on Sunday. But it

seemed to me that the management there would be

more cooperative if I held off until the official word came down that Bobbie Jean had been murdered.

I’d been hoping to learn two things from a visit to the country club. One was whether anyone had wit

nessed something untoward that day. The second was

whether Bobbie Jean had been engaging in a bit of

hanky-panky with any of the Silver Oaks employees.

At that moment, though, it popped into this pea

brain of mine that it would also be advisable to ques

tion the staff about the victim’s relationships with her fellow club members. Listen, who’s to say one of them

didn’t sneak into the dining room that afternoon to

put some extra zing in Bobbie Jean’s salad?

Still, my primary suspects remained Allison’s bud

dies—at least for the present. I mean, Bobbie Jean

had given them such dandy little motives for wanting her dead.

I decided to keep these things to myself, however.

‘‘You have a point there,’’ I told Allison. ‘‘And I’ll be

driving out to Silver Oaks as soon as I can set up an appointment.’’

‘‘I’m glad to hear that.’’ There was relief in her

voice.

‘‘But look, Allison,’’ I warned, ‘‘from what I’ve

gathered, it’s no deep, dark secret that Bobbie Jean caused those four friends of yours a lot of grief. So I’d be really surprised if sooner or later—and most

likely sooner—Chief Porchow didn’t find out how

much they despised her.’’

‘‘I was just about to tell you—he’s already been

apprised of that. When I pleaded ignorance, Wes

stepped in and named names, briefly outlining why

each of them had such antipathy toward Bobbie Jean.

90

Selma
Eichler

Don’t think he was comfortable talking about that,

either. But he’s absolutely determined that Bobbie

Jean’s killer be brought to justice.’’ And now Allison tagged on dryly, ‘‘Naturally, Wes soft-pedaled her

abominable behavior to the extent that this was

possible.’’

‘‘How is he taking the news that she was murdered?’’

‘‘He’s terribly shaken that somebody hated his little

sister enough to poison her. But I’ve been saying a prayer that once the guilty person is apprehended, it will be easier for Wes to come to terms with what

happened.’’

‘‘Let’s hope so,’’ I murmured.

‘‘Chief Porchow also asked if we had any idea who

profits from Bobbie Jean’s death. Wes told the chief

he was familiar with his sister’s will and that our son is slated to inherit a fairly substantial sum of money. Aside from that, Bobbie Jean specified a significant

portion of her assets to be divided among her three favorite charities. And the balance, which is the bulk of the estate, she bequeathed to Wes.’’

I was thinking that this gave Allison herself a reason

for wanting Bobbie Jean to go bye-bye—apart from

having to tolerate the woman all these years, I mean. But while I hadn’t examined the Lyntons’ bank state

ments, I didn’t imagine that even without that windfall

from the deceased they’d be standing on line at a soup

kitchen anytime soon.

Right after this it dawned on me that Allison wasn’t

the only one at that shower who would be benefiting

financially from Bobbie Jean’s demise. That is, once