Wednesday dawned warm and I decided to get out of the city. I enjoyed a beautiful drive as I headed southwest into the foothills to Cal’s house to find out what he’d learned about Samantha Healy.
Cal’s home office couldn't be more dissimilar from mine. Where I have books, videos, pictures, and other valuable items, and one computer, Cal has nothing in his office but computers – four to be exact – and other computer-related stuff. To be fair, there is a ratty loveseat to sit on at your own risk, and a chair that Cal wheels from monitor to monitor across the hardwood floors. But it isn’t hard to grasp what is important to the man, and it isn’t anything aesthetic.
Stacks of books, manuals, and boxes of computer parts cover most of the available floor area, and a plethora of dirty dishes growing science projects were strewn about the long tables where the computers were set up. This was where Cal lived, where he was truly at home. He even watched DVD’s on a 30-inch computer monitor. If he could’ve fit his twin bed in the office, I’m sure he would sleep here, too.
“You checked out Denver Alternative College last night?” Cal asked once we were settled in his office.
“Uh-huh.” I sprawled out on the loveseat, ignoring the stale air and dust I created when I upset the cushions. I shaded my eyes against the bright sunlight coming into the room from a small window over the couch.
By the time I finished relating my encounter with Xania Divinity, Cal was on the floor.
“Stop,” he gasped, his whole body shaking with laughter. “Man, that’s priceless.”
“As is Xania. Talk about a legend in her own mind,” I chuckled. “I did look up her name online, though. She has some acting credits, mostly some minor television roles in the late ’60’s and ’70’s, and some off-Broadway plays, so I guess she knows something about the theater.”
“Hoo boy.” Cal wiped tears from his eyes, crawled back into his chair, and became serious. “You doubt Samantha’s alibi?”
I nodded. “I don’t think Xania has the first clue if Samantha stayed the whole time or not. I’ll have to interview each student in all the acting classes to find out if Samantha left early or not, and who knows if any of them would remember.”
“What’d you find out about Ned’s insurance policy?” Cal asked.
I turned on my left side, which eased some of the discomfort from my broken ribs. I was breathing normally but still experienced a bit of pain when I moved in just the right way.
“I called Jack and got the information about the company, and gave them a call.” I said. “The agent I talked to wouldn’t reveal who it was that called him. He kept saying it was an anonymous person, but he slipped more than once and said ‘her’ or ‘she’.”
“Samantha.”
“That’s what I think,” I said. “Ned’s policy has been sitting there since his death, but it’s at the instigation of the deceased’s relatives or the beneficiary to get the ball rolling. In the case of Ned Healy, this anonymous phone call did that. The agent has to receive a death certificate, and then the insurance company will make the claim. A little bit of paperwork, and they release the money to Samantha. I called the county coroner, and it’s not that hard to get a death certificate either.”
“Huh.” Cal twisted up his face, thinking. “Any reasons why the insurance company wouldn’t release the money?”
“The usual – suicide. But Ned’s death was officially ruled as an accident. It’s nice and tidy for Samantha.”
“So we have motive.”
“Right. Money – a half million big ones. And we have the means. Samantha could’ve left her class and gotten Ned to go with her up into the mountains for a bike ride, and then she pushes him off the trail.”
“How would she get home?”
“She either rides back, or she has an accomplice pick her up somewhere, maybe at the trail head, and they drive back to Denver.”
“But Ned hated the mountains, right?”
“He hated heights. Jack said that he didn’t like cycling, or the mountains. But we only have Jack’s word that Ned was afraid of heights. Maybe Ned went to therapy and worked on that. And who better to talk Ned into going up on that trail than his ex-wife?”
Cal mulled that over. “It’s possible. I don’t like going riding, but you got me to do it.”
“Exactly.” I stared at the tiny dots in the popcorn ceiling. “I wish I could get into Samantha’s house, find out if she has any barbiturates, or if she could easily get her hands on some pills that she could’ve slipped in Ned’s drink or something.”
“Sounds like you’ve been watching too much late-night television.”
“Sometimes the means and motive are so obvious you gloss right over them.”
“I might be able to shed some light on Samantha’s ability to get the drugs,” Cal said, grabbing some papers from the table.
“Oh yeah?”
“Samantha Healy,” Cal said, propelling his chair next to the couch. “Formerly known as Samantha Simpson. Do you want her vital statistics?”
“Not unless it has a direct bearing on this case.”
Something crinkling underneath me, so I reached down between the couch pillows and pulled out a half full bag of potato chips, now mangled to crumbs.
“Lovely,” I said, holding the bag up.
Cal tossed the bag into the corner, onto a pile of papers and other stuff I didn’t want to imagine.
“You don’t want to know her age. Okay.” He paused. “Do you want to know that she’s thirty?”
“You just told me.”
“She’s five-foot eight, a hundred and thirty pounds.”
“What does this have to do with the price of rice in China?”
“Nothing. It was part of my research.” Cal shot me a pious look.
I sat up and rubbed my neck, trying to ward off a headache.
“Okay, I’m focusing. You said you had something about Samantha getting drugs.”
“Right.” Cal waved a paper in front of my face. “Samantha has a criminal past.”
“What?” I snatched the paper from him. “When? What for?”
“Samantha Simpson was busted for possession eight years ago.” I did some quick math. “That was four years before she married Ned.”
“What’d they find on her?” I asked, scanning the notes. Cal had printed out all the related offenses Samantha had been charged with.
“Samantha was stopped for erratic driving, was combative, and was subsequently taken to jail. When she was searched, lo and behold, she had a number of Seconal pills in her purse.”
“Not very bright,” I said.
“She was in college,” Cal said. We both knew how stupid young people could be – the remembrance of our infamous flour tortilla drug purchase was enough for us to look on Samantha’s actions with a certain tempered sympathy.
“The police report said that Samantha claimed she didn’t know how the drugs got there, but who would say ‘Yes, the drugs are mine’ when they’re being arrested?”
“And she had enough on her to get charged with possession with intent to sell. Because it was her first offense, she got probation and community service,” I said, finishing the report. I gave the paper back to Cal. “Samantha obviously knew how to get her hands on the stuff.”
“If she did then, she could now,” Cal said.
“And she’s familiar with the effects. She would know that Seconal would make Ned drowsy, if not put him to sleep. Easier for her to get him in the car and up into the mountains.”
“But how would she get him on a bike?”
“She wouldn’t have to drug him that much, just enough to make him a little loopy. Then he’s more easily manipulated.”
“True.”
“And it can’t be that hard for her to get her hands on the drugs. I’d bet there’s at least a few students in her class that use something.”
“She drops a pill or two in a drink she gives Ned, then takes him for a ride, they go around that bend, and he’s gone.”
“That was my theory,” I said.
“I’m coming on board.”
“Oh.” I reached for the phone. “I’m hungry. Let’s get some lunch.”
“Yeah, detective work really takes it out of you.” Cal shot me a goofy grin.
I ordered us a pepperoni and mushroom pizza, and while we waited for the delivery, we worked on a crossword puzzle. Let me correct – Cal worked on the puzzle, a tough New York Times one, and I mostly watched, adding one answer about Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film – Blackmail, made in 1929, in case you wanted to know. We were halfway through when the doorbell clanged.
Cal left to pay the pizza guy, and my cell phone rang.
“Hello, is that you Reed?” Henri Benoit’s accent cut in and out like a bad television signal.
“Yes. Henri, I can hardly hear you.”
I stood up and moved around the room, trying to get a better connection.
“There is...” The line crackled. “You should...” I tried the hallway.
“Henri, I can’t hear you.”
The line suddenly cleared, and Henri’s breathing blared through the phone. In the background, the bell in his shop chimed.
“Why are you yelling?” Henri asked. “I don’t understand this business with the cell phones. You think if you cannot hear someone, it will help if you yell into the phone. I can hear you just fine.”
“I can hear you now,” I said. I didn’t tell him that I was standing on the toilet in Cal’s bathroom. Must be the porcelain making a better connection.
“I have to talk to you,” Henri continued.
“Okay, shoot.”
“No, not over the phone. I want to show you something.”
“About the poster?” A burst of excitement sizzled through me and I dropped the phone. It hit the tile floor with a clunk. Henri’s disembodied voice crackled up at me.
“Henri, wait Henri. I can’t hear you.” I shouted again as I snatched up the phone. Now the connection was really bad.
“What do you think of that?”
“What? I dropped the phone, Henri. I didn’t hear what you said.”
The phone buzzed and hummed at me. “Why...wait...come down...until six.”
“I’ll come down to the shop,” I interpreted the sounds.
“Ah, yes...stop shouting...can’t be possible.”
The line went dead.
“Damn it,” I said, then used the tried and true way of fixing any gadget that was giving me a problem. I banged the phone on the counter top, then put it to my ear. Nothing.
“That’ll solve the problem,” Cal said from the doorway. He had the pizza box in one hand, some papers towels in the other, and an amused look on his face.
“It’s worked before,” I mumbled as I followed him back into the office. It didn’t matter. Now I had an excuse to go back to Henri’s shop and marvel at all the collectibles.