Jason and Lucie told us what a great time they’d had at dinner. Hannah’s grandfather took them to a new Mexican restaurant in Decatur.
“Beatrice is really old,” Lucie said, “but she knows everything. When Hannah and I talked she’d respond like she understood whatever we said. No offense, Mama, but she knows all the words. If you get to be friends with her you won’t need an urban slang dictionary.”
“Great. We’ll have them all over for dinner soon.”
We got the kids in bed not long after their bedtime. It was Friday, so it didn’t matter much.
Finally, we were alone. I made sure the hall door was closed. Danny had to work late, so he couldn’t join us. I checked once more to make sure Lucie wasn’t in the hall eavesdropping.
“All clear,” I said, and we settled in the family room, french doors closed.
“Now, Mason, what is it you know?” I asked.
“Let me start with what I think might be most important to you, Ditie. Kevin says you can talk to Jonathan, but he wants you to wear a wire.”
“Wear a wire? Are you kidding?”
“He says he has reason to believe Jonathan might not be as innocent as he claims about everything that’s going on. His wife, Stephanie, is also a person of interest.”
“Person of interest?” Lurleen asked. “That’s just a fancy phrase for suspect, isn’t it?”
Mason shrugged.
“They don’t think Jonathan faked the hit and run, do they?” I asked. “I’m not sure how you’d managed that and end up with a broken arm and a shattered hip.”
“No,” Mason said. “That seems to be legitimate.”
“I’ve wondered about Stephanie,” I said, “and her Aunt Josephine. After all, they are the ones who organized the book club.”
“Josephine Strout is also on Kevin’s list of suspects,” Mason said.
“Are you suggesting it’s a family affair?” Lurleen asked.
“It’s possible,” Mason said.
“Stephanie is my friend,” Lurleen said. “It’s why I got involved with all of this in the first place, but to be honest I’ve wondered about her lately.”
“Why is Kevin giving you all this information,” I asked, “and allowing you to tell us?”
“He wants you to know what you might be getting into,” Mason said, “so you can back out if you want and ask the right questions if you choose to go through with it.”
Mason turned to Lurleen. “I wanted Lurleen here because you need to know Stephanie could be involved, so you need to be careful around her.”
“Message received,” Lurleen said.“Does Kevin think the murder of Nicole is connected to what happened to Jonathan?”
“He hasn’t found that connection if there is one,” Mason said. “He does know that Nicole was in the hospital with Luke when he died and she was with Stephanie’s father when he died in the same hospital a year later.”
“On the exact same date, October 26th,” Lurleen said. “The same day someone ran Jonathan off the road. Kevin doesn’t think all of that is some weird coincidence, does he?”
“No, he doesn’t,” Mason said.
“So that means a killer is still out there,” Lurleen said. “Maybe you shouldn’t talk to Jonathan, Ditie.”
“It’s the safest place I could ever talk to him,” I said, “in a hospital with police near by. He couldn’t attack me if he wanted to and it’s unlikely someone else could get past a guard to harm either one of us. Maybe he’ll explain some things we can’t understand.”
“Like what?” Lurleen asked.
“I have a lot of questions, Lurleen. If this is some kind of vengeance for the death of Luke, why wasn’t Nicole killed on the 26th? She’s the one who was present at the deaths of both Luke and Mr. Strout Senior, so if this was a revenge killing why wasn’t it on the anniversary of Luke’s death? Finally, why is someone attacking Jonathan and why do it six years after Luke died? Everyone we’ve talked to has told us how much Jonathan loved Luke, so why would anyone think Jonathan had anything to do with Luke’s death? He wasn’t even in the country.”
“Good questions, Ditie,” Mason said. “I don’t think Kevin has been able to establish that either death, Luke’s or Mr. Strout’s, was murder. Donald Strout Senior went into the hospital after what appeared to be a heart attack. He was about to go home when he had a second heart attack, and that’s what killed him. Kevin gave me a copy of the discharge summary, in this case, the death summary. He knew you’d want to read it, Ditie, and he asked that if you saw anything odd about it to let him know.”
Mason handed me the three-page report. I read it and summarized.
“The cardiologist said Mr. Strout had high cholesterol and a weight problem. He’d already had a stent put in to open up one clogged artery before he had the heart attack that brought him to the hospital. The family refused an autopsy after he died from a second heart attack in the hospital, and the doctor agreed it wasn’t necessary.”
“Has Kevin found anything suspicious about Nicole’s work history as a nurse?” Lurleen asked. “Two deaths in her presence would make you want to take a look at that.”
“She seems to have been a well-respected nurse,” Mason said. “Patients liked her and there was no uptick in deaths when she was on duty, nothing like that. She stayed with Luke when he was in the hospital, but Kevin doesn’t know if that was as a family member or if she was working at the time. She was apparently a student nurse when Luke died.”
“Was an autopsy done on Luke?” I asked.
“Yes. The cause of death was sepsis,” Mason said.
“I’d like to read that report,” I said.
“I can probably get a copy for you,” Mason said. “What are you suggesting, Ditie?”
“I’m not suggesting anything except that someone seems to believe foul play was involved in the death of Luke, and I’d like to see if there is any reason to think that.”
“You believe someone took revenge for his death,” Mason said,” by killing Mr. Strout and attempting to kill Jonathan on the anniversary of Luke’s death.”
“It looks like it, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Mason nodded.
“What doesn’t add up,” I said, “is that Nicole, who is the link between these deaths, wasn’t killed on the 26th.”
“Maybe someone needed to shut her up,” Lurleen said, “like the real killer.”
I shrugged. “This is where everything spins out of control. There doesn’t seem to be a neat explanation that ties all these facts together. That’s another reason I want to talk to Jonathan. Maybe he holds the key.”
“What about the other deaths in the family?” Lurleen asked. “Like Mrs. Strout’s death or Don Junior’s death. Were those possible murders as well?”
“It doesn’t look like it,” Mason said. “Mrs. Strout died of scleroderma. You’ve said that can happen, Ditie—that some people have a relatively mild course with the disease and sometimes, rarely, it can be fatal.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“As to Don Junior,” Mason said, “we know he died in a skiing accident a few years ago in Switzerland and that’s been corroborated by witnesses. Neither death sounds suspicious.”
“You get the feeling this family is cursed,” Lurleen said. “Don’t give me that look, Ditie. I’m not saying a ghost from the past took his revenge, although personally I don’t rule that out. If you like it better, I’ll call them unlucky, very unlucky!”
“It wasn’t a phantom that killed Nicole,” Mason said. “She was strangled by someone who was strong enough to overwhelm her or maybe got her so drunk she couldn’t resist. Her alcohol blood level was 0.20 %.”
“So she might not have been conscious when someone strangled her,” I said.
“Possibly not,” Mason said.
“Could we go back to Mrs. Strout for a minute?” I asked.
“Sure,” Mason said. “You think someone killed her?”
“No,” I said. “Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease that involves a tightening of the skin, and sometimes, as in Mrs. Strout’s condition, it involves organs and other connective tissue.”
“In English, Ditie,” Lurleen said.
“My point really is that Mrs. Strout probably suffered a great deal from her condition, so I’m curious about the birth of Luke,” I said. “She was sick and probably in her early forties when Luke was born. Did she get pregnant by accident? Or . . . .”
Lurleen finished my thought. “You’re wondering if Mrs. Strout actually was Luke’s mother! That would open up an entirely new can of worms, and it should be easy enough to find out if Mrs. Strout was pregnant before Luke was born.”
“I’ll pass this along to Kevin,” Mason said, “if he hasn’t already considered that possibility.”
Lurleen pulled out her iPad and was silent for several seconds.
“Mrs. Strout was forty-six when she died; that would have made her forty-one when she gave birth to Luke because she died when he was five.”
“That’s possible,” I said, “except that Mrs. Strout was so ill.”
We watched as Lurleen continued to type away. “I found her obituary, which describes her as wheelchair bound for years before her death.”
“How could such a woman carry a pregnancy?” I asked. “Who would even allow her to try?”
“So,” Lurleen said, “if Mrs. Strout was not Luke’s mother, who was?”
“That might be the million dollar question,” Mason said.
“If Luke had lived he’d be sixteen years old by now,” Lurleen said. “Most of the women in the family are in their mid to late thirties. Josephine’s the oldest, in her early fifties I’d guess, so any one of them might have been Luke’s mother.”
“But who would hide that fact?” I asked. “Who would allow the Senior Strouts to raise Luke as their son?”
“Perhaps someone who got pregnant by mistake or through violence,” Mason said. “Anything is possible, and for now we have no information to go on. The first step is to see if we can confirm or disprove that Mrs. Strout was pregnant with Luke sixteen years ago.”
“I’m on it,” Lurleen said.
“I want Kevin to be on it,” Mason said. “As I’ve already warned you, this family might have a lot of secrets, and they might be willing to kill to keep them buried. Besides which, we don’t know that any of this is related to Nicole’s murder.”
“You’re right, Mason,” I said. “Does Kevin have a list of suspects?”
Mason nodded. “Ben Ash is at the top of Kevin’s list.”
“If there weren’t other deaths, he’s the one I’d suspect,” I said. “Nicole had bruises on her body that she didn’t want to tell me about. She said they came from hiking accidents which is possible but unlikely.When Ben Ash burst into the book club, it was obvious he was drunk and out of control.”
“Lots of people hated Nicole,” Lurleen said. “Stephanie said Nicole had broken up more than one relationship and seemed to be someone who liked to cause trouble. And she said Jonathan claimed she’d done something awful to him in the hospital.”
“I’ll make sure Kevin has that information,” Mason said.
“We have one other mystery player we haven’t talked much about,” I said, “Adeline Morgan. She was someone Josephine invited to the book club, but Adeline said she was too busy to come. Josephine invited the women who had had some contact with Jonathan, but Jonathan claims he barely knew her.
“We know she works at the CDC and has for the last few months. We also know that Jonathan started to fall apart three months ago, and according to my friend who works in a lab near his, he was at risk of being fired.”
“More information I’ll take to Kevin,” Mason said.
“I can see why Kevin wants me to wear a wire,” I said, “to make certain any information I get is recorded accurately. I’d still like to talk to Jonathan on Sunday. What do you think, Mason?”
“Kevin seems to think Jonathan is the weakest link and might supply a great deal of missing information. Of course, anything Jonathan says can’t be used in evidence. Kevin isn’t reading him his rights, but he still might give him some leads to follow.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said.
“Let’s see what Kevin finds out before Sunday, and then we’ll decide,” Mason said. “Whoever killed Nicole already knows you’re involved, particularly if it is a family affair.”