An Anniversary to Die For (23 page)

“Well, I’ve been reading about him for the last twenty-four hours, and I don’t know that much.” Jinx put down her fork and looked up at Susan. “But I do know one thing. He’s either a very unlucky man or else someone’s been trying to kill him for decades.”

TWENTY-FIVE

^“
WHAT?”

“Let me give you a little background on the family first. It won’t take long.”

“Okay.” Susan glanced down at her watch. “Just as long as you finish before Sam gets here.”

“I will. I don’t know that much yet. As far as I can tell, there have been Markses in the area almost as long as this inn’s been around. I actually found an article about the history of the family. Doug’s great-great-grandfather was a member of the local militia during the Revolutionary War. And his great-uncle led a company from Oxford Landing at the Battle of Gettysburg.”

“Sounds like Doug’s affection for guns may be a family trait.” Susan poured artificial sweetener into her iced coffee.

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on. I don’t suppose the
Oxford Democrat
owns a copy machine?”

“No. But I’ve got a pile of papers ready to go to Kinko’s.”

“This afternoon?”

“Sure. Do you want me to go on?”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

“Well, as I was saying, by the time the family got down to Doug’s parents, they were very important landowners around here. Doug is an only child, and my impression is that his minor achievements received a disproportionate amount of attention.”

Susan smiled. “Are you saying Sam Redman can be influenced by the movers and shakers of Oxford Landing?”

“No, I’m saying his father could be. Sam seemed to be mostly amused by the entire thing, to be honest.” Jinx looked up at Susan. “Do you want to hear more about this, or do you want to talk about Sam and me?”

“I’d rather talk about you and Sam, but that’s not what we’re here for. Go on. I’ll stop interrupting.”

“You’d better, or we’re not going to get done. Well, the paper recorded all the ordinary things: Doug and his heifer calf at the county fair were featured on the front page in August when he was eleven or twelve. And his various science projects in high school. But those might have been featured because he won, not because of his family. Doug actually won the state science fair two years in a row.”

“Clean water?”

Jinx looked up from her food, surprised. “Yes, how did you know?”

“He’s apparently become an international authority on the subject.”

“Well, he got an early start. But he went to college in California, and there’s a break of four years when, except for a few announcements about his mother’s circle meetings at the Presbyterian church, the Markses weren’t mentioned much. Then, of course, there was the wedding.”

Susan leaned forward. “Whose wedding?”

“Ashley and Doug’s.”

“Of course. Did they meet in California?”

“No. Ashley grew up here. In Oxford Landing. You didn’t know that?”

“No. It wasn’t mentioned in the paper.”

“Well, of course she didn’t get the same press attention as Doug did.”

“Does that mean she isn’t from an important family?”

“Definitely not. The only thing I know about her background came from their wedding announcement. You know how those things are—at least, how they were thirty years ago. Most of the emphasis was put on the bride.”

“And what did you learn about Ashley?”

“Her father and mother ran the Texaco station out on the highway. I asked Sam if it’s still there, and he said he thinks it’s become that big truck stop. He vaguely remembers when it was known as Hurley’s Texaco.”

“I gather Ashley was Ashley Hurley before her marriage?”

“Nope. Ann Hurley—not even an e on the end of Ann. Apparently she changed her name after she got married.”

“So Doug and Ashley grew up together. I had no idea.”

“I don’t know how together they were when they were growing up. Doug had just completed his second year in a Ph.D. program at Stanford the spring before their wedding. Ashley had her high school degree and had been studying acting in New York City, according to their wedding announcement There was no mention of any professional acting school.”

“So she could have been doing almost anything at all in the city.”

“Yes, but with her looks, she could have gotten some small jobs here and there.”

“She was good-looking?”

“You should see her bridal photo. I don’t remember her at your party, but when she was young, she was beautiful. In a rather conventional way.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. Ashley was a very attractive woman. Very well groomed and benefiting, maybe, from a bit of plastic surgery. But you could say that about lots of women in their fifties.”

“That’s true.” Jinx pushed her hair off her forehead. “I’ve been thinking of having my eyes done myself.”

“Hmm.” Susan didn’t respond. She knew that women of a certain age—as she and Jinx were—could talk about this subject for hours on end, and she had other things on her mind now. “Well, I don’t know about Ashley when she was young, but she’s nothing spectacular now.”

“And, apparently, neither well educated nor particularly affluent.”

“And Doug was both.”

Jinx nodded. “It sounds like it.”

“According to Signe they didn’t live around here after their marriage.”

“No, the paper didn’t mention much. There was a society reporter in the fifties and sixties, but Sam thought the column she wrote caused a lot of hard feelings. So when she retired, he didn’t replace her. But in the early sixties photos began to appear of Signe—she was in a play that her Girl Scout troop took to nursing homes in the area, things like that.”

“No mention of her parents?”

“Nope. Well, I don’t think so. As I said, it’s difficult to locate all the issues from that period.”

“So you didn’t find information about the first reports of poisoning.”

“Yes. And no.”

“No?”

“I didn’t see anything that was published about it in the newspaper, but Sam knows a lot—a whole lot—about it. That’s what . . . well, that’s one of the things we were talking about last night.”

“And what did he tell you?”

“It upsets him to talk about it. I hated to upset him.”

“Jinx!”

“Look, I’ll try to explain, although to tell the truth, I hate to—but you’ll understand about that when I finish. I’ll try to start at the beginning.”

“Good idea.”

Jinx took a deep breath and began. “Sam used to date one of the nurses who worked in the emergency room of the local hospital. And he says she told him about the poisoning first. To begin with, he says, everyone thought it was just a rather odd accident.”

“Why odd?”

“Because it happened to people who lived on the farm but who didn’t actually work in the fields.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“I didn’t understand that, either, but Sam says that’s because I didn’t grow up in a farm community. Remember, a lot of the regulations concerning insecticides are fairly recent. Farmers used to use many more dangerous chemicals than they do now. And farmworkers, mostly migrant workers, frequently came down with baffling illnesses that doctors assumed had to do with the chemicals they were exposed to. But apparently everyone was surprised when Doug and Ashley became ill.”

“Both of them at the same time?” This was news to Susan.

“Yes. Sam says he’s sure that the first thing he heard about any poisoning was that the two of them had been admitted to the hospital with severe stomach problems. Of course, no one thought it was poisoning then. Food poisoning or the flu was the diagnosis.”

“Really?”

“Yes. As Sam said, who would have suspected poison? A couple is admitted to the emergency room with severe diarrhea, nausea, and stomach cramps, and the doctor will work to stabilize them and send them home. If a group of unrelated people come to the emergency room with the same problem, authorities may be called in to attempt to track down the source of food poisoning, but a married couple with the same symptoms . . .” Jinx shrugged. “According to Sam, no one paid any attention. At least not the first two times.”

“Two times?”

“Yes, but then the third time Doug almost died.”

“Doug? Just Doug?”

“Yes. Sam thinks they were both poisoned, only Doug became deathly ill. At least, he says that’s how he remembers it.”

“Was it reported in the paper?”

Jinx frowned. “That’s one of the problems. Sam says it was kept quiet. He knew about it, but . . . Well, he didn’t say this, but I got the impression that it wasn’t reported on because of how important the Markses were in the community. Sam seemed a bit upset and embarrassed about that, so I didn’t push him.”

“Someone was being poisoned, and it was kept quiet?”

“No, that’s what I’m telling you. At first, no one had any idea it wasn’t all just a terrible accident. The assumption was that Ashley and Doug had accidentally ingested some of the insecticide used on the farm.”

“Isn’t that a little odd?”

“Yes, but Sam says it’s not unheard of. The Markses checked out the storage of all insecticides and decided that no matter how the poisons had gotten into their food in the past, it couldn’t happen again.”

“But how did they explain the first two times?”

“Apparently the theory was that someone had delivered groceries and insecticide at the same time and the insecticide had somehow contaminated the food. But then Ashley got well and Doug continued getting sick.” Jinx yawned and took another sip of her coffee. “According to Sam, that’s when the police were called in.”

“By who . . . whom?”

“By the emergency room doctors. Tests had been done on Doug to attempt to track down the source of the poison, but when he continued to be ill, the doctors decided something odd was going on.”

“And?”

“And the police decided that the poison was being administered intentionally by what Sam called a person or persons unknown.” Jinx blushed. “I think he watches a lot of cop shows on TV.”

“Like most men,” Susan said. “And who did the police suspect?”

“Sam says Signe.”

“How does he know that? Who told him?”

“He didn’t tell me who told him. He did say that he’d make a few calls this morning and try to learn more.”

“But Signe wasn’t arrested, right?”

“No. Sam says a story went around town that Ashley had claimed responsibility for misplacing the poison or something like that. He said it was all very odd and that he probably should have investigated further, but—”

“But he didn’t want to upset a prominent family unless he absolutely had to.”

“He’s embarrassed about it, but he said the poisoning stopped and everyone got well. Ashley and Doug went back overseas, and Signe graduated from high school and moved to New York City to attend college. Sam says he thought that was the end of it. Most people who had been involved assumed the whole thing was an accident. And then, of course, he heard about Ashley being arrested for poisoning Doug.”

“That sort of changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, but . . .”

“But what?”

“Sam doesn’t know if the police in Hancock were informed about the first poisoning. I think that’s what’s worrying him most of all. Especially now that Ashley has been murdered.”

“Wait. I don’t understand. Ashley’s arrest for poisoning Doug was front-page news all over Connecticut. It even made the New York City TV stations. Are you telling me that Brett and the police in Hancock weren’t notified about the earlier poisoning?”

“Not as far as Sam knows.”

“He didn’t call?”

“No, and he says he’s pretty sure no one else did, either.”

“No one?”

“He says the man who was chief of police back then retired to Florida years ago and may even be dead. The doctor who was in the emergency room left the area and now lives and works in Boulder, Colorado, and may not even have heard about Ashley’s arrest. And . . . well, Sam says this is not a cosmopolitan area and people tend to distrust the wealthy suburbs to the south.”

“It might have made a big difference,” Susan said slowly.

“Yes.”

“Ashley might never have been arrested if the story of the first poisonings had come to light.”

“Yes. That’s possible.”

“On the other hand, Signe might have been considered the major suspect instead of her mother,” Susan continued.

“Yes.” Jinx was fiddling with her knife and fork and didn’t look up at Susan. “But that’s not what’s worrying Sam.”

“What is?”

“Sam is worried that if the police had known about the first poisoning, they might have found and convicted whoever was poisoning Doug this last time. And, of course, Ashley might not have been poisoned. She might be alive today. That’s what’s worrying Sam. That’s why he’s so upset. He feels partially responsible for her death.”

TWENTY-SIX

THAT’S WHEN SAM REDMAN WALKED INTO THE RESTAURANT of the Landing Inn. His smile, which appeared when he spied Jinx, changed to a frown when he realized who was sitting across the table from her. Ignoring a waiter who was trying to seat him, Sam strode across the room, grabbed an empty chair, pulled it up to their table, and sat down.

“Greetings, ladies.”

They responded politely, but apparently Sam Redman wasn’t interested in polite chitchat. “I’ve been up since five A.M. going though what I’ve been stupidly referring to as the morgue down at the office. Can’t believe what a mess I’ve let it become. And I’m paying for it now.”

“Did you find more information about the insecticide poisoning?”

Susan and Jinx both leaned forward to hear the answer—and were both disappointed.

“Nope. If a file about that event ever did exist, it’s gone now.”

“You’re sure?” Jinx asked.

“Yup. I pulled everything that related to police activity. Nothing. There’s a big hole in the files in the beginning of the seventies. Guess this should be a lesson for me. I’ll never let loose a bunch of high school kids in my files again.”