Then Hang All the Liars (26 page)

Margaret's voice broke. “Poor strangled babe. Fucking bitch.”

With that, the back door flew open, bouncing against the wall.

Whew! It was the boys.

“Momma?”

Or was it?

“Momma? Are you here?”

Margaret ignored Laura, and went right on with her monologue.

“She
should
have strangled me, like that baby, strangled me at birth.”

Margaret was pointing at the photograph.

Of course. Felicity. When she was young.

Laura saw Sam, and faced her with hands on hips. “What the hell are
you
doing here?” Still wearing her makeup from the play, she looked like Lady Macbeth but sounded just like her Great-Aunt Emily.

Before Sam could answer, Laura whirled toward her mother. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Sam knew the feeling. But the horror was still going to be there when she looked again. It was going nowhere.

“I'm afraid—” Sam started.

Laura's eyes popped open. Her green gaze drilled Sam, then shifted to her mother and the debris on the kitchen table.

“Did you eat anything?” She flung the question at Sam.

“A sandwich.”

“Shit! Goddamnit!”

What the hell was
this
all about? Sam had just about had a bellyful of this passel of crazy women—the whole bunch jerking her around for the past week. She pointed a hand in Laura's direction and counted off her gripes on her fingers.

“Look. One, your mother's drunk. Two, she tried to kill me. Three, I've got a bunch of questions I want to ask her about her friend Randolph Percy who's turned up dead. But in the meantime, we're taking her to Grady to observe her for forty-eight hours. In fact,” she said and rotated her forefinger in the direction of the door and the footsteps now coming up the stairs, “that's got to be Emergency Services right there.”

“Good.” Laura's mouth was tight. Not nearly so pretty now. “You better ride in with them and tell them to pump your stomach when you get there.” She didn't have to add
Miss Know-it-all.
Her face said that.

“Why the hell would I want to do that?”

“Your choice. No skin off my nose.”

And there was the Laura that Sam had first heard talking with Miranda behind the potted palm.

“But I'm pretty sure my mom's just poisoned you.”

Nineteen

Laura was right. Her mother had indeed spiked Sam's sandwich (as well as her own, which, of course, she didn't eat) with clostridium botulinum.

The attending physician said it for her very carefully after they finished with her in the emergency room, helping her puke her guts out.

Sam wasn't feeling too good at the time. She asked the doctor to repeat it when she dropped in to see her for a minute in the room where they were holding her for observation for twenty-four hours.

She got only half the term of Margaret Landry, who was without a doubt going to have to do a lot more time than that once she got out of Grady. Most probably in a nice warm psychiatric ward. Maybe somewhere out in the country.

Clostridium botulinum.
She practiced it so it would go trippingly off her tongue when she said it to Beau. He dropped by to see her.

“You wouldn't listen to me.”

She said the two words she'd practiced.

“I know! That's what I was trying to tell you when you got so snooty with me on the phone.”

“You knew that it was botulism?”

“I was screening for it when we talked. The only thing I could find that seemed at all out of the ordinary in Percy's autopsy was an excessive amount of fluid in the intestine. I kept running over what we had. The flu symptoms. Aching. Nausea. Vomiting. Difficulty breathing. Then I called Barnabas up at Quantico. He said he'd think about it, then called me back an hour later. He asked me if the old man had eaten any food that was canned at home.”

“It was in the marinated mushrooms,” Sam said. “How'd she do it?”

“Came on it accidentally, Laura said. She's a great cook. Made batches of jam, did a lot of canning.”

And in the process, produced that funny smell. Just a few weeks ago, Peaches had put up the last of some late tomatoes, and their kitchen had been filled with that hot, tinny odor, which was what Sam had remembered but couldn't put her finger on. She was going to have to ask Peaches how she'd guessed Margaret was Felicity's daughter. That had to be what Peaches had hinted at.
Infuriating
old woman.

“Did she get sick herself?”

“No, she knew what she had when a bunch of jars she'd lined in her cupboard began to pop. It sounded like gunshots in the night, according to Laura.”

“And she gave a jar to Felicity?”

“Actually, she gave it to Randolph to give to Felicity.”

“Pretty scattershot. She could have killed the whole lot of them.”

“Which would have been fine with her. Felicity was numero uno, Emily a close second, and she was pissed off with Randolph because he wouldn't kill Felicity.”

“Did she ask him to?”

“I don't think so. She knew enough about him to know that he well might. But he seemed to be truly fond of Felicity, and besides, he was getting what he wanted for the present. But Margaret wasn't. She was growing mighty impatient.”

“Laura told you all this?”

“Uh-huh. She sees that there's no way out for her mother but for her to come clean. Get her some help.”

“And what was Laura's role?”

“Nothing really. She knew her mother was getting pretty crazy, drinking a lot, so she'd tried to clean up behind her. She got wind of what Margaret was up to, listening to her drunken ramblings, so she went to the Edwards house to try to snag the mushrooms off the shelf.”

“The day she showed up for her lesson.”

“Right. The drink of water was an excuse to get back in the pantry.”

“Where she smashed everything?”

“No. She was going to take the mushrooms. But she couldn't find them, so she came back later, sneaked in the house, and destroyed everything.”

“Too late, though.”

“Right. Percy was already dead then. Emily says Felicity had had Randolph over for tea Sunday afternoon. Among the things she served were the mushrooms he'd brought.”

“But, you know, Sam, food contaminated with botulism tastes awfully rank. That's why more people don't die of it. And kids hardly ever. They just spit it out.”

“Our Randy was a pig, according to Emily. She said she'd never seen a man tuck away so much food in her life.”

“And you didn't taste it?”

“I thought there was something a little funny. But Margaret knew what she was doing. She piled on so much hot relish and Pickapeppa, I could have eaten—God, I don't like to think what.”

“Well, they pumped you; you'll be all right. Did they give you antitoxin, too?”

“No. Blood tests showed I'm fine.” She sipped the chocolate malt that Beau had brought her. “Did you screen the puppy?”

“Yeah. It was the same.”

“Laura said it was a test to see if the toxin worked. Of course, it was a little torture for Emily, too. Playing with her.”

“And the doll?”

“Right. And the chocolates and the Mother's Day card. She was pretty whacked out.”

“Well. That's over, I guess, thank god.” Beau stood, a little awkward now. “I've got to get back to the lab.”

“Yep.”

“No rest for the wicked.”

“Right. Thanks for the malt.”

“When are they letting you out of here?”

“In just a little while.”

“Want me to wait? I'll give you a ride.”

“Thanks, no. Nicole Burkett called.” She pointed at a big bouquet of calla lilies. “She sent those and said she'd like to come by and take me home.”

Beau whistled. “Tall cotton.”

“I did her a favor once. My momma taught me it's nice to let people say thank you.”

*

“Thank you for letting me pick you up,” Nicole said as Sam slipped in beside her.

The back seat of the Rolls was deep and soft and wide. The partition between them and the chauffeur was shut tight.

“Thank you for doing it.”

“I'm sure any number of people would have been happy to. Among them our Miss Wildwood. You must have quite a fan club.”

“You're kind.”

“I'm not. I'm honest. So I should tell you that I have an ulterior motive in mind.”

They were floating up Piedmont in the Rolls. Past the turnoff to her street.

“We—”

“Humor me. This won't take but a few minutes. And then we'll get you right home to your family. I know they're all anxious to see you.” Nicole leaned forward and opened the bar. “Would you like something cool to drink? A glass of water?”

“Yes. That'll be fine.”

“Miranda has decided that she'd like to take a break from school.” Nicole could have been making polite chitchat over lunch. “Europe is so lovely in the fall. She's been spending the past few days having long talks with a friend of mine, a psychiatrist who's not only awfully good, but awfully wise. He's helped me in the past.” There was a long pause. “So I thought he could help Miranda. He suggested that the two of us might want to spend some time together. So we're going to Paris.”

“Soon?”

“Day after tomorrow. We'll reopen our house there, spend a couple of months, come back for Christmas, and then Miranda can decide if she wants to return to Scott or perhaps somewhere away from Atlanta.”

“And your husband? He won't mind?”

“Yes, he will. But I'm not so concerned with his wishes right now. I've given him a wifely lecture about being more careful of his business investments. And I'm taking care of my daughter.” She looked out the window for a moment. “I've talked with the mothers of all the other girls, too. They're handling things as they see best.”

“His business investments?”

Nicole had just slipped that in. Surely she couldn't mean what Sam thought she did. Or could she?

“Are you saying that
your husband
is the owner of Tight Squeeze?”

Nicole made a small, neat gesture with both hands as if she were an umpire calling a runner safe.

“The property. Not the business. But the property.”

“Good God.”

Nicole nodded. “I think P.C. will be more judicious in the future.” She turned and gave Sam a wide smile, ready to move on now. Old business. Finished. “That's all taken care of. Or will be soon. You agree with my decision about the girls?”

“Absolutely. I think you've done the right thing.”

“Good. I thank you for your help. Now, you're feeling fine?”

“Right as rain. Just had a chocolate malt.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Nicole smiled.

Piedmont Park was on their right now. At Fourteenth, they turned left, then left again on Peachtree. Having described a long parallelogram, they were headed back toward home. What was the point of this little trip? Sam's eyes asked Nicole the question.

“Did you know,” Nicole said as if she were answering it, “that the area around Tenth and Peachtree was called Tight Squeeze right after the War Between the States?”

Sam shook her head. George had threatened to tell her this story once. He never had.

“Why?”

“Though it was only a narrow dirt road then, it was notorious for being a hangout for thieves, vagabonds, and other thoroughly disreputable types.”

Sam looked out the window, trying to imagine the busy street as Nicole described it. Nicole raised her voice to be heard over approaching sirens. Traffic stopped as a fire truck passed.

“There wasn't much here then. A blacksmith shop. A wagon yard. Maybe a few wooden stores.”

Another fire engine. Sam put her fingers in her ears for a moment.

“But even so, so many scoundrels abounded that it was called ‘Tight Squeeze.'”

A third emergency vehicle passed, wailing to beat the band.

“Because it took a tight squeeze to get through it?” Sam asked.

“Precisely. To get through with one's life.”

Traffic was completely stopped now. They inched ahead. Three of Atlanta's finest had blocked the way with their patrol cars and were directing traffic to detour to the right.