Killing Cousins by Rett MacPherson Page A

Brooke?”
    â€œI didn’t,” he said. “When I went by Norah’s Antiques, the young woman working there, Bridget’s her name, said that he was on holiday and that his stepdaughter was the only person in town who would have contact with Mr…. I mean Sheriff Brooke before he got back. She told me where you lived.”
    Another drawback of a small town. Everybody thinks that everybody else has friendly intentions. Mr. Newton probably did have friendly intentions. He probably did just want to buy a necklace. But he could have been a serial killer, for all Bridget knew. I turned back into my house, shut the door and set Mr. Newton’s card on the top of the piano.
    The phone rang. First a knock and now a ring. I answered the phone in the kitchen on the second ring. It was Deputy Duran, sounding chipper and wide awake. He probably started his shift at six in the morning.
    â€œTorie,” he said.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œThe autopsy is back.”
    I was a little surprised to see Deputy Duran calling me over the autopsy after yesterday’s fiasco. “And?”
    â€œIt was murder.”
    Shock kept me from forming any coherent sentence. I was sure that I had misunderstood what he’d said. How could it have been murder? Why would it have been murder? “What…I uh…How?”
    â€œEvidently, whomever he had seen earlier in the day poisoned his clam chowder.”
    â€œI still don’t understand.”
    â€œSometime on Thursday, Mr. Ward ate a bowl of clam chowder and it was poisoned. A slow-working poison,” Duran said.
    â€œSo, then do you think he just wandered into the Yates house because he was starting to feel bad, or hallucinating? Or do you think he was headed there for a purpose and just happened to die in there rather than somewhere else, like behind the wheel of his car?” I asked.
    â€œYour guess is as good as mine. We’re going to go over the crime scene one more time and then demolition is going to go ahead before Mayor Castlereagh has a stroke,” he said. “So, I just wanted to let you know that the house is coming down sometime today.”
    â€œAll right,” I said.
    â€œOh, and Torie?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAbout yesterday. I hope that you understand. About the Finch file.”
    â€œYes, I understand. In fact, after sleeping on it, I’ve come to the conclusion that you’ve probably saved me from doing something that would have caused me great humiliation.” My cheeks grew hot just from the thought of it.
    He laughed and that made me feel good.
    â€œCan I ask a favor, though?” I asked.
    â€œSure,” he said.
    â€œCan you not tell Colin? Please?”
    â€œSure thing.”
    â€œI plan on asking him if I can read the file when he gets back.”
    â€œOkay, well, I’ll talk to you later then,” Duran said.
    â€œSee ya, Edwin.”

Fifteen
    â€œVictory?”
    I looked up from my desk to see Sylvia standing in my office doorway. She looked pale today, in a beige double-knit pantsuit that was probably made when I was in the first grade. “Yes?”
    â€œHave you gotten any work done on the biography?”
    â€œWell,” I said, looking toward my children playing Pictionary in the corner. I didn’t want to lie with them in the room. “I haven’t actually written anything, but I’m making tons of notes and I have done an outline.”
    â€œGood,” she said. A tremor caused by age had taken hold of Sylvia in the past few years. She always looked as if she was shivering. She gazed at me just a minute too long and I knew that there was something wrong. Sylvia usually barked her orders or reprimanded me and moved on. If she lingered there was something that she wasn’t saying.
    â€œSylvia? Is there something you want to tell me?”
    â€œI’m sure it’s nothing.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s Wilma. She’s