Dying to Retire by Jessica Fletcher Page A

a sip, savored the taste, and swallowed. “Just before you came, Rosner, the building manager, was here, wanting to know my plans. ‘Am I selling or staying?’ he asks.” He snorted softly. “As if I’ve already made plans. I’m barely awake, but I just can’t sleep.”
    “You’re going to lose strength if you don’t get some rest,” Seth said. “I can write you a prescription for a mild sleeping aid if you think you need it, but it would be better coming from your own doctor, who’s familiar with your medical history. Want me to make the call?”
    Clarence shook his head. “I’ll be okay. I’m upset, that’s all. It’s been a nightmare since Portia died.” He took another sip of his coffee and put the cup aside. “First the police hold on to her body and I have to postpone the funeral; then they finally release her, and now they’re coming back and questioning me like I’m some criminal. She had a heart attack, for heaven’s sake. She had a bad heart. Everybody knew that. Now the police tell me she was taking diet pills and they caused her heart to fail. That’s news to me, but they don’t believe me.”
    “Did you know she was taking diet pills?” I asked.
    “She wasn’t. Go look. The bottles are on her dresser. Oh, no, they’re not. They’re probably in some plastic garbage bag. And the Simmons twins took the dressers away.”
    “Did you want them to do that?” I asked. “We can ask them to bring them back if you didn’t intend to give them away.”
    “No, don’t do that.” He waved one hand wearily. “They were all excited when Monica suggested I give them Portia’s matching dressers. I have my own furniture in storage. Anyway, I don’t need two dressers to hold my things.”
    I wondered why Monica was so eager to help dispose of Portia’s furniture, but I didn’t comment on it. Instead I asked, “What kinds of pills did Portia take?”
    “Prescriptions?”
    “No, the supplements. Do you remember?”
    “Of course I remember,” he said. “I helped her fill those damn pillboxes every day. We went over the catalogues together, looked up the drugs on the Internet on places like Healthy Stuff and Pills for Less, before we ordered them.” He looked down at his hands and counted off on his fingers. “She took turmeric, bromelain, flaxseed oil—those are antioxidants—boswellia and nettle for arthritis, glucosamine, calcium, selenium, ginkgo biloba for memory, black cohosh. . . .”
    “What was that for?” Seth asked.
    “It’s instead of estrogen replacement,” Clarence replied. He’d run out of fingers.
    “What’s in it?”
    Clarence shrugged. “We could look in the garbage bags for the bottles, if you really have to know,” he said. “They’re empty, however. Monica flushed all the pills down the toilet.”
    “Why would she do that?” I asked.
    “She said she was afraid Snowy could get ahold of them. I didn’t care. I don’t take those things.”
    “But you let Portia take them,” Seth said. I could hear he was making an effort to keep his voice neutral, and not to reveal his disapproval.
    “It’s not like you could forbid Portia to do anything she had in mind to do. But yes, I never objected because they really helped her. She used to say she was very healthy with one big exception. She told me she felt terrific, no pain, no shortness of breath. Her eyesight was bad, but she was still hoping for some improvement from the lutein. I don’t know if I gave you all the pills. We can look inside, unless one of those harpies threw the bottles away, too.” He hung his head. “That was nasty. I’m sorry. I know they’re trying to be helpful. I just wish they’d leave me alone.”
    “You have to tell them that,” I said. “You have to be a little forceful in protecting your privacy.”
    “You’re right,” he said. He was silent for a moment, then heaved a big sigh. “Now the police are on my back. This detective examined Portia’s bottles like he was