Chapter Fourteen

“This is looking more and more fishy,” I said. “Even without confirmation of it being a murder.”

“I would say I’d have to agree,” Pogue said. “As much as I hate to admit it.” He shook his head and dug his hand in his pocket. “What is going on around here? I swear! We hadn’t had a murder ever in Roble, and then you come home, Romie.”

“And what?” I asked.

“And now there’s a murder every other week,” he said.

I held up my hands. “Don’t blame me!”

“It’s not every other week, Pogue,” Auntie Zanne said. “This will only make the third one.”

“You say that like three murders is no big deal,” he said.

“And,” she continued, “it wasn’t just after Romaine came home that it started,” Auntie Zanne said, “it was also after you became sheriff.”

“See,” I said and punched his arm. “Maybe all of this is happening because of you being sheriff.”

“Whatever happened, this is bad,” he said, rubbing the spot where I landed a punch as if it really hurt. “One murder after another.”

“I know,” I said. “It’s like being in Chicago.”

Pogue sucked his teeth. “I hope we never get that bad. He turned and looked at Auntie Zanne. “You know I want to tell you not to get involved, Babet,” he said.

“But?” we both asked.

“But I’m not going to say it. It seems like people are coming to you, giving you unsolicited information on this one.”

“They are,” she said, a sly grin spreading across her face.

“Doesn’t mean for you to go poking your nose into anything extra, though,” Pogue said.

“I don’t poke my nose in—”

He didn’t let her finish her sentence. “You do. So just don’t. That’s all I’m asking. That and to tell me when anyone else comes spilling the beans or you find out anything else that might help button this down.”

“Done,” she said.

Pogue looked toward the door where Mr. Elder had stalked out. “You did a good job getting information out of him, Babet. Without confirmation of a murder, though, all it appears is that he is just a big liar.”

“Romaine will confirm it,” she said.

“You act as if you want it to be a murder,” Pogue said.

“Vivienne Pennywell is never wrong,” she said. “I trust her. She said it was murder. I believe that’ll be just what Romaine will find.”

“Even if it’s not murder,” Pogue said. “All the people I’ve talked to today are definitely up to something. They all are acting awfully suspicious.”

“You think so?” I said.

“Yeah, I do. Why else are they lying? No one even has to ask them a question, they just spout out lies on their own volition.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s anything illegal,” I said. “The reason that they’re lying.”

“Didn’t say it was illegal. I just said suspicious.”

Pogue left and I knew I was going to be unable to sleep. I had so much information spinning around in my head. Too much stuff to sort out about who did or said what, so I took a shower instead.

A nice long one so I could think. But by the time I stepped out of it, I just had more questions.

If Orville Elder did kill his wife, how did he do it? According to him, he dropped her off way before the spill happened. Could it really have been hydrofluoric acid in that plastic tumbler? And if it was, was it what killed her?

The husband was the killer. Cliché, but often the best first and best person to look at for the deed.

Was it for the fifty-thousand dollars? Or did perhaps…I took my towel and swiped the condensation off of the bathroom mirror. “Perhaps,” I said out loud, “Delphine’s the one who’s got murder in her blood.”

I wrapped the towel around me and walked into my bedroom, grabbed my Nivea lotion off the top of the chest of drawers and plopped down on the bed.

Delphine’s nephew, Boone Alouette, I thought as I smoothed the cool cream up my leg, had just killed someone using the ricin she had. I remember after I saw her, I realized she and Boone had the same eyes. Maybe the same evil was behind them.

The thought made me sit up straight. Why had she kept something so deadly right in her kitchen cabinet?

Maybe. Just maybe…I squirted another dollop of lotion into my hand and spread it over my arms and hands. Maybe Delphine had been planning murder all along. Planning to kill Eugenia because she accused her sister of infidelity. Or because she’d found out that she was the beneficiary of a fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy…

That’s a reason to kill.

So, maybe…Delphine had used hydrofluoric acid because her murderous nephew Boone had used up all the ricin leaving her without her weapon of choice. She had to improvise.

And, I thought and tilted my head to the side, she did point to her cabinet and tell me she had lots of deadly herbs in them. Maybe she meant herbs and acids.

I walked back over the dresser, put the lotion back on top and pulled open a drawer. I found clean underwear in the top one, and a pair a jeans and a t-shirt in another one. I pushed it shut with my hip.

But where had Delphine gotten hydrofluoric acid from to put in her cabinet? Surely, she couldn’t have grown it in her garden right next to the nightshade and foxglove.

I decided to look it up.

I slipped into my underwear, grabbed my phone from the nightstand and sat on the side of the bed. I’d learned from Logan it was a handy little instrument for furthering your knowledge on anything.

I typed in hydrofluoric acid and scrolled down past pictures and videos, one entitled “Flesh-Eating Acid,” which according to Mac it wasn’t, and found a “People Also Ask” section. The first question listed was, “What hydrofluoric acid is used for?” And the answer was authored by Medscape. A reputable go-to place for people of my profession, so I figured I could trust what they had say. “Hydrofluoric (HF) acid,” it read:

one of the strongest inorganic acids, is used mainly for industrial purposes (e.g., glass etching, metal cleaning, electronics manufacturing). Hydrofluoric acid also may be found in home rust removers. Exposure usually is unintentional and often is due to inadequate use of protective measures.

“Is it in common household cleaners?” I said aloud. I scrunched my nose. “Just found around the house?” I couldn’t believe something so deadly was a staple in people’s under-the-sink stash of cleaning products.

I googled household cleaners with hydrofluoric acid and an ad for Lysol was the first result. “Oh my goodness! Lysol has hydrofluoric acid in it?”

“What is hydrofluoric acid?” A voice came from behind me. I turned and saw Rhett standing at my door. I screeched, jumped then slid onto the floor in one movement.

“What are you doing here?”

“Your Auntie Zanne sent me up to make sure you hadn’t fallen asleep and would miss getting her guests to the airport.”

Rhett Remmiere was Auntie Zanne’s employee of sorts. The black Frenchman who wasn’t French at all. I wasn’t quite sure what he did around the funeral home, he just would seem to always show up and irritate me. Although, it seemed that I had suddenly discovered his eyes. Behind those wire-rimmed glasses he always wore, he had beautiful light-colored eyes with specks of gold that danced and twinkled, especially when he smiled.

Auntie Zanne said he was ex-FBI, even suggesting he was a spy. He had thought that part funny. Either way, I didn’t believe he was an agent, although he did seem to have a knack for showing up to help when I needed it. If he were FBI, it would seem to me that he would’ve shown some interest in the murder investigations and Auntie and I had conducted right under his nose. He hadn’t. Never even offered help or much advice.

Still, even with him not being forthcoming about his personal life, and me unsure of his purpose in Roble, I wasn’t sure how I felt about him. He was the man that was getting tangled up with my thoughts of Alex. A man I felt myself possibly being drawn to.

I was sure that couldn’t be good.

“Why are you standing there?” I said peeking over atop of the bed from where I was perched on the floor.

“I just told you,” he said, his eyes seemingly twinkling more than usual, “I came to make sure you weren’t going to be late for your assignment.”

“An assignment is what it is,” I said with a groan. I grabbed my watch off the nightstand. 10:10. I was okay on time. I strapped it on and looked at Rhett. “Auntie Zanne just thinks I’m back here with nothing to do and on her beck and call.”

“You are here with nothing to do,” he said.

“I have things to do.”

“Yeah. Right,” he said and smiled. “You could get a job though, you know.” He shrugged. “She couldn’t pick on you if you’re weren’t here.”

“I could say the same thing to you.”

“This is my job.”

“What? Delivering messages for Auntie Zanne?”

“Yep.”

“So you’ve officially quit the FBI?” He had never admitted to me that he actually worked for the agency.

“You’re always bringing that up?” he said.

“What?”

“Did I tell you I worked for the FBI?”

“You evidently told Auntie Zanne, and she has told everyone else.” I raised an eyebrow. “You’re wasting your FBI skills here.”

“I’m here because of you,” he said.

“You are not,” I said, my heart unsuspectedly starting to flutter. “You’re always trying to flirt with me. Can’t you see it’s not working?”

“I’m going to keep trying until it does.”

“Is that what they teach during FBI training? Always get your man? Or in my case, woman.”

He laughed. “Even a non-FBI trained person could see that I’m wearing you down.”

“You wish.”

“I’d show you,” he said, raising his head like he was peeking over the bed, “but right now you are off task. Like I said, I’m here to remind you not to be late.”

He changed the subject, but not my heart rate. I did believe he was wearing me down. But he was right, I had to get to the airport, and I wanted to get to Eugenia Elder’s autopsy. I didn’t have time to think about what he did to my blood pressure.

“If you’d leave so I could get dressed,” I said, “I could get to what I need to do.”

“You need any help?” he asked, a smirk on his face.

“No.”

“I meant with what you need to do.”

“Yeah. I’m sure that’s what you meant. All I need is for you to go.”

He grabbed the doorknob and started to pull the door shut. “You know you should probably keep this closed when you’re getting dressed. It can be distracting for passersby.”

“No one lives in this house but me and Auntie Zanne,” I said. “Its other periodic occupants don’t go roaming around.”

Those darn eyes of his started twinkling even more. “They might,” he said, “if they knew they’d find you.”