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I rolled over in bed and looked at my clock. It was 11:15 p.m. I had been in bed for well over an hour but was still not even close to drifting off to sleep.
My cell phone buzzed. I was expecting it to be Carter; it wasn’t. My Caller I.D. read, “Swamp Bar.”
“Hello?”
“This is Nickel, down at the Swamp Bar,” came the reply.
“Nickel, what can I do for you?”
“That wide-load Brit and his snotty sister are down here again,” he said. “He’s been drinking a lot and he’s rambling loudly. I’m worried he’s going to bend some noses out of joint again. I thought you should know.”
“Oh, my goodness. Is Owen there?” I asked.
“No, thank god for small favors.”
“Thanks, Nickel, I’m on my way.”
Twenty-three minutes later I walked through the door of the Swamp Bar and spotted Victor immediately. I was getting looks as I walked in, but not in a flattering way. The women looked at me as though I were a lost cat. My hair was uncombed; I was in sweat pants with a t-shirt. It was only when I saw a few of the men staring at me that I realized I had also forgotten my bra. The chill of my car air conditioner had made that abundantly clear to anyone looking in my direction. Of all places to make that mistake, I thought.
Again, there were people gathered around Victor—almost all women. This time no one seemed to be laughing. Instead, they were were staring silently at Victor, as though he was getting ready to perform a magic trick. As I approached, I heard Victor speaking. He looked as though he was barely able to stand. His speech was slurred. Was he . . . reciting poetry?
“Lo! where the Moon along the sky
Sails with her happy destiny;
Oft is she hid from mortal eye
Or dimly seen,
But when the clouds asunder fly
How bright her mien!”
For the moment, anyway, no one looked as though they were ready to knock him to the ground and pounce on him—that was the good news. I nudged one of the ladies who had been quietly listening to him. She was in a trance-like state. I couldn’t tell if she was just drunk or actually mesmerized.
“How long has he been doing this?” I whispered.
“Over half an hour, I guess,” she said.
“Are you finding it . . . interesting?” I asked.
She shrugged, “It beats hearing my boyfriend bitch about the New Orleans Saints’ defense.”
I nodded.
Victor continued, louder than before.
“Far different we—a forward race,
Thousands though rich in fortune’s grace
With cherished sullenness of pace
Their way pursue,
Ingrates who wear a smileless face
The whole year through.”
I spotted Bessie and made my way to her. She stood leaning against the bar, about seven feet away from Victor, arms folded, looking bored to tears. She spotted my approach and offered a small wave.
“I take it Victor couldn’t sleep,” I observed.
She nodded, “I see your power of observation is finely honed this evening.”
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“He’s reciting the poetry of William Wordsworth,” she said.
I shrugged and formed a confused look.
“Oh . . .”
She looked at me, obviously disappointed, “English romantic poet from the early 1800s?”
I raised my arms, palms out, and shook my head, indicating a lack of connection.
“Oh really, Fortune,” she scoffed. “The Prelude is only the crowning achievement of English Romanticism. Don’t they teach you Americans anything about poetry?”
“I’m a big fan of Shel Silverstein,” I pointed out. “Does that count?”
“You’re hopeless,” she ridiculed, shaking her head.
I looked back at Victor, who seemed to be getting louder and louder as he recited. It didn’t seem to matter to the folks gathered around him, but the volume of his voice was increasing and carrying into other parts of the bar. The men playing pool and watching the baseball game on television were looking annoyed.
“Does he get like this often?” I asked.
“Only when he’s been drinking a good deal,” Bessie answered.
“And?”
“And he’s completely pissed,” she added.
“He doesn’t look that angry?”
“No . . . not angry. I mean British pissed . . . as in trolleyed, sloshed, wankered . . . you know, drunk on his arse.”
“Oh.”
Victor bellowed the poem’s climactic ending.
“If kindred humours e’er would make
My spirit droop for drooping’s sake,
From Fancy following in thy wake,
Bright ship of heaven!
A counter impulse let me take
And be forgiven.”
“Does this go on for long?” I asked.
“It depends on how sloshed and depressed he is,” Bessie said. “I’ve seen him fizzle out after about thirty minutes or so, and I’ve seen him ramble for two hours or more.”
“So, do you think this is a short ramble or a long one?” I asked.
“He may actually set a record tonight,” she said.
“You know, Bessie. In Sinful, the novelty of an eccentric British man reciting poetry in a place like The Swamp Bar is likely to wear off pretty quickly. People are gonna start shouting for his head . . .”
“It won’t help,” she said. “He’ll stop when he’s ready to stop.”
“I just worry that some Louisiana trucker is going to loosen a few of his teeth and send him to the floor,” I said.
“He’s been knocked to his butt more than once,” she said. “It goes with this particular territory. We’ve both come to expect it.”
“Well, then . . .”
“He gets like this when he’s stressed,” she said. “You’d be surprised though, he’s actually quite functional, even when he has a snoot full.”
Right on cue, I heard a muscular man yell at the bartender from twenty feet away, “Nickel, will you shut that fat boy up. The Braves are in the bottom of the ninth. I can’t hear crap with this loud mouth flappin’ his gums.”
“Yeah, tell lard ass to pipe down,” yelled another.
“Shut him up, will ya?” yelled a third.
And so, it began.
“For my next selection,” Victor announced, as though he heard none of the complaints, “I will recite Ode to Duty and dedicate it to the ladies of the Swamp Bar. On a side note, I don’t want to dump too much excitement on you, however, I do want you to know . . . I am single.”
The ladies listening to him began to chuckle. The men standing on the periphery, however, the ones becoming annoyed, did not see the humor. At least Owen wasn’t here, I thought—that was good news.
“Wow, single! What a shock,” yelled a man who was twenty feet away, throwing darts. Several men laughed.
“So, you’ve never been married?” a fortyish year-old woman asked.
“Never. Women are like cute little bunnies,” he said. “I love to cuddle with them, but would never want to actually have one of my own.”
Nickel looked at me and raised his arms in exasperation. Clearly, he was giving me an opportunity to take care of Victor before he was forced to do it, but he was growing impatient. I looked at Bessie.
“C’mon, let’s get him to a table,” I said, “before he really makes someone mad.”
“We can try,” she said.
Getting Victor to the table was not an easy task. It took coaxing from both Bessie and I. However, after an arduous effort, we managed to pull him away.
“Ah, my lovely librarian, Miss Fortune,” he said. “I see you’ve left home without your brassiere. Was that for my benefit?”
I instinctively folded my arms high on my chest.
“No, but please make note of my tangled mess of uncombed hair, Victor,” I replied. “This is the second time I’ve been rousted from bed in the middle of the night to come down here and save you from the locals. The next time I’m liable to just let them have their way with you. I presume you’ve seen Deliverance.”
I looked at him with raised eyebrows. He raised his eyebrows too, in response. Message delivered.
“Hmmm,” he said. “A fair warning. Thank you. Let me ask if I may—in this Deliverance analogy, am I the unfortunate lad with the banjo, or the man who has the pretty mouth?”
“What do you think?” I said.
“Souuu-eee!” he cried out, chuckling, causing people to turn their heads toward us.
“Might we have some coffee?” he said. “I’d prefer tea, but in this bar, I’m sure they’d serve some atrocious American concoction, like Lipton. I really don’t think I could handle that right now. I have something to share, I mean, as long as you are already here.”
I waved at Nickel and mouthed the word, coffee, to him. He nodded. Two minutes later an entire pot with three cups came. He glared at Victor, who seemed oblivious.
“Don’t worry, my dear Fortune,” he said. “I’m not as sloshed as it would appear, and I sober quickly.”
“I’ve heard,” I replied.
I poured Victor a full cup.
“Sugar?” he said.
I opened a pack of sugar and spilled it in the coffee.
“Let’s drop the pretense, shall we,” he said. “Four sugars, please.”
“Really, Victor,” I said, handing him the additional sugar, “I know we were dealt a disappointing setback today, but you can’t continue to come here and get drunk. It’s doesn’t help our cause. Trust me, we’ll pick up the trail on Emma’s killer, tomorrow.”
“I have no intention of waiting until tomorrow,” he said, sipping the coffee and grimacing. “Oh heavens, this is not coffee. It’s the warm urine of Satan.”
“What do you mean, you don’t want to wait until tomorrow?” I asked.
Victor took two more large sips before answering, obviously less offended at the taste of the coffee than he let on.
“Bessie and I believe we’re approaching this investigation wrong,” Victor said. “We thought of a new approach.”
“I’m listening.”
Bessie nodded, “Our belief is that Emma was murdered. Thus far, our approach has been to find who killed her first, and then use that information to determine how the murder might have been accomplished,” Bessie continued. “We have been failing in that regard.”
Victor nodded in agreement, “But, we wondered; what if we approached this from a different position altogether? What if we focused our efforts on how she might have been killed, first, instead of who may have killed her. If we knew how it happened, that information could lead us to the killer. We wondered, what could potentially kill a person that would look like a heart attack?”
I shrugged, “That’s the million-dollar question. Chemical or pharmaceutical poison comes to mind.”
“The very first place I looked,” Bessie agreed. “But nearly all chemical and pharmaceutical poisons present themselves in a manner that makes it obvious. They reveal symptoms like gastrointestinal issues, and other telltale signs, such as discoloration of the skin, bleeding from the mouth, eyes or ears. Emma had none of that. Not to mention, if poison was involved, it would have showed up on the tox screen that Deputy LeBlanc so graciously arranged. No, it wasn’t conventional poison. So, if not that, what then, we wondered? Then it hit us . . .”
“Bessie, hand me my smartphone,” Victor said.
Victor took his phone and opened up his picture gallery, “After you left, I began to think about your conversation with Maxine—very detailed account by the way. At the end of the conversation when you walked through her garden, you mentioned a strange beautiful plant with blue flowers, a plant you had not seen anywhere before. Is that correct?”
“Yes, Ida Belle had taken a picture of it—that’s true,” I replied. “They were a bluish-purple, as I remember.”
“Did that plant look like this?” he asked. He had opened a picture on his cell phone and held it up for me to see. I looked at it.
“Yes, that’s it,” I said. “That’s exactly it. How did you know?”
“That’s not the right question to ask,” Bessie stated. “The right question is, what is it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Like I said, I’ve never seen it before.”
“The plant is called ‘Aconitum,’ or sometimes ‘monkshood.’ It goes by many, much more colorful, names. It’s also called Woman’s Bane, The Queen of Poisons and Wolfsbane,” Victor said.
“Wolfsbane?” I repeated.
“I am a little behind on my botany,” I admitted. “I have heard the name, wolfsbane, though—from horror movies.”
“I must admit my foundation of knowledge is limited to what I learned this evening after you left,” he said. “The scientific name for the active chemical is Aconitum. It typically grows in the mountain regions, but with proper care, can flourish in places like here in Sinville.”
“Sinful,” I corrected.
“Yes, of course.”
“Aconitum is highly poisonous,” Bessie said. “Administered in the right way, and in the right dose, death is certain, and can be very quick.”
“And death from consumption of the Aconitum can appear to be a heart attack,” Victor said.
I froze as I considered the implications.
“But the tox screen was clear.”
“Aconitum will not show up in a normal tox screen,” Victor said, “even in a broad-spectrum panel.”
“How can we prove she died of Aconitum poisoning if it doesn’t show up on a tox screen?” I asked.
“Good question,” Victor said. “And one we have thought of, as well.”
“Although the outward appearance of death from Aconitum poisoning looks like a heart attack, the actual cause of death is asphyxiation,” Bessie said. “The Aconitum paralyses the heart and respiratory center and the victim can no longer breathe. A coroner would be able to tell if that were the case through an autopsy.”
“So, if Emma actually died from asphyxiation, that would prove the death was caused by this . . . aconi . . . wolfsbane?”
“No, it would only prove that she did not suffer a heart attack,” Victor corrected.
“How would that help us?”
“If the ruling was death by asphyxiation, it would be enough to trigger a full-blown investigation. But there is more urgency, still.”
“Really?” I said.
“We’ve been reading. There is a new test, called liquid chromatography,” Bessie said. “It’s rare and not performed in normal autopsies, unless specifically ordered. There has been recent success in finding Aconitum gas traces in the urine. The key is to run the test soon after death.”
“That’s why we are going to make arrangements for a full autopsy,” Victor said.
“The Medical Examiner won’t do it,” I said. “I’ve already asked.”
“I can pay for a privately funded autopsy, in New Orleans, and will arrange it first thing in the morning,” Victor said. “If the results do indicate asphyxiation, we will arrange for the liquid chromatography test.”
“That’s amazing detective work,” I said.
“Thank you,” Victor said.
“I did most of the work,” Bessie said.
“It was my idea,” Victor insisted.
My head was spinning, “So, if this is true, then Maxine Reed has to be responsible. I know I ruled her out, but I must have missed something—it has to be her. She had this wolfsbane in her garden. Somehow, she managed to create an alibi and . . .”
“Maxine Reed didn’t kill Emma,” Bessie said.
“I’m confused, then,” I replied. “If Emma died from Aconitum poisoning and the only Aconitum around here is growing in Maxine’s garden, then it had to come from hers.”
“On that point, we agree,” Bessie said.
“There’s a common link, my dear Fortune, a common link,” Victor said.
I thought for a moment, and then it hit me.
“The gardener?”
Victor opened another picture from his phone and showed it to me.
“Meet Mr. Augustus Proctor of Gus Proctor Landscaping Services,” he said. “His friends call him Gus, or so his website indicates. As it turns out, Mr. Proctor is Maxine’s gardener as well as Emma’s.”
I looked at the pictures on Victor’s phone of the website. I saw Gus Proctor’s picture.
“Oh . . . my . . . god,” I said. “I saw this man earlier today. He was in the library, returning books.”
“His home base is in a town with a charming name—Thibodaux. That’s about ninety minutes away by car,” Victor said.
“I’ve been there; the town is anything but charming,” I replied.
“A town in Louisiana, devoid of charm? Shocking, to say the least.”
Bessie rolled her eyes.
“After I had my suspicions about the wolfsbane, I took the liberty of calling Maxine Reed myself,” he continued. “I introduced myself as Emma’s brother and told her I was having a tough time locating contact information for the gardener about some maintenance.”
“And?”
“As it turns out, it was Maxine Reed who recommended Mr. Proctor to Emma in the first place,” Bessie said. “Maxine and Emma met at the nursery in Thibodaux, precisely as she told you. When Emma told her about all the work she intended to do in her garden, Maxine gave her the contact information for a wonderful gardener.”
“Gus Proctor,” I said. “He was both Maxine’s and Emma’s gardener. He had access to wolfsbane from Maxine’s garden.”
Bessie nodded. “He was also the one who ‘discovered’ Emma’s body. He could have poisoned her with the Aconitum plant, and then cleaned up any evidence the next day before calling the police.”
“So, he could have killed her on Friday, and then come back on Saturday to ‘discover’ her body?”
“It’s possible,” Bessie agreed. “He would have known Emma was a recluse and knew no one would miss her Friday night.”
“But, if all that is true, why hasn’t he killed Maxine Reed, then?” I asked.
“A quick scan of her credit scores provides the answer,” Victor said. “The woman is seriously credit challenged.”
“She has no money to speak of,” Victor said. “She receives a small Social Security pension which allows her to live very modestly.”
He took another large swig of his coffee and grimaced at the taste.
“Let’s go home,” he said. “We have work to do. We begin first thing in the morning.”