Purrfectly Deadly

Chapter 27

It is one of those annoying things when a detective comes at the end of her long list of suspects and discovers there aren’t any left. Odelia wasn’t a detective, per se, but she certainly wanted to catch a killer, and when she stared down at her notebook, she found she’d scratched out all the names. Veronica had been her final and most promising suspect, and now she’d lost her as well. Dang, she thought, as she threw her notebook on the dash.

So now what? Start from scratch?

She stared out through the windshield, gathering her thoughts. After dropping off her litter of cats, she’d idly driven around, trying to gather her thoughts, and now found she’d returned to Bryony Pistol’s place. Which was just as well, for she wanted another word with Johnny’s widow anyway. Last time she’d practically been shown the door, and she wanted to talk to her a little more about Johnny, and whether the man had any other enemies.

And as she thought some more about this, she found that there were many more suspects to be interviewed: perhaps Johnny’s housekeeper had seen something, or his gardener, or his pool boy. And then there were his manager, fellow musicians, perhaps a lawyer… Though she was pretty sure Uncle Alec had covered all his bases and had questioned all those people.

She got out of the car, walked up to the gate and pressed the bell. She just hoped that Bryony wouldn’t hold her attitude toward her daughter against her. Maybe she should start by apologizing for her earlier behavior. But the gate immediately swung open, which she took as a good sign, and she took a firmer grip on her clutch and crossed the gravel driveway to the house.

Yellow and gold gravel crunched under her feet, reminding her of the brown sugar she liked to put on her pancakes. There was a small pink fountain in the driveway, a replica of the one in front of Johnny’s house, only instead of Johnny spewing out the water, a cherubic angel did the honors.

The moment she arrived at the door, it swung open, revealing Bryony.

“Hi,” she said. “Sorry to bother you again, Mrs. Pistol. I wanted to apologize about before, and ask you a few more questions if you don’t mind.”

“Apology accepted,” said the woman curtly. As she led her inside, she said, “You just missed Veronica and… that man. She told me about your incident. And how she decided to come clean about Detective Kingsley.”

“Yes, that’s right. She told me Detective Kingsley is innocent after all.”

They’d arrived in the same parlor where they’d held their earlier interview, and Bryony raised her eyes skyward. “How any child of mine could turn out to be such a liar… and all because of that horrible man.”

Bryony took a seat on the red velvet sofa while Odelia took the chair. “He promised me he’s out of the drug business. And I happen to believe him.”

“Men lie, Miss Poole, and men who use drugs even more. I’ve seen it with my husband. When we were still together he promised me time and time again he’d quit using, and the moment my back was turned he was at it again. It’s a very hard habit to kick, and the last thing I wanted was for my daughter to get involved in the same nasty business that ruined her father.”

“At least she’s not a user herself,” said Odelia.

“No, at least there’s that. Thank heaven for small favors. With a father who’s a heavy user and a boyfriend who’s a dealer that’s a small miracle.”

“Were you never tempted yourself?”

“Never,” said Bryony adamantly. “I witnessed firsthand what drugs did to Johnny. He could have been one of the true greats, and instead he chose to waste his entire life and throw away his unique gift. Such a terrible shame.”

“Yes, it is a terrible thing.” She looked around the room. It was decorated in a floral motif, both wallpaper and upholstering pink roses on an off-white background. Even the parquet floor was inlaid with a rose motif. Very pretty.

“So what did you want to know?” asked Bryony.

“Well, Veronica told me her father set up a trust fund in her name. So she would never have to worry about money ever again?”

“That’s right,” she said with a smile. “I told him to, so he did.”

“Did he make the same arrangement for you? If I’m being too blunt, just tell me,” she quickly added when the woman’s face clouded.

“No, that’s all right. It’s not a great secret. Johnny never saw any reason to set up a trust fund for me, as we never divorced. And as his wife I was entitled to half his fortune in case something ever happened to him.”

“And in case he remarried?”

“Well, he said he would take good care of me,” the woman said with a tight smile. “Johnny knew he owed me his career, and he wasn’t going to leave me penniless. So I’m sure he was going to make some arrangement.”

Odelia’s eyes darted to a side table carrying at least a dozen framed pictures. Most of them were of Veronica, with one picturing her donning a graduation cap and gown, smiling into the camera. Then she suddenly saw another picture and she blinked, startled. It showed Bryony and looked recent. Very recent. Bryony, who’d followed Odelia’s gaze, now rose. “Can I get you something, Miss Poole? Tea, perhaps, or coffee? I just made some.”

“Yes, please,” she said, nodding distractedly.

She now saw she’d been wrong… about everything.

“Don’t go anywhere,” said Bryony with a smile, and left the parlor.

She quickly got up and checked the picture more closely. There was no mistaking the background. It was the iconic Sydney opera house, a popular and famous landmark. Suddenly, Bryony’s voice sounded behind her. “That was taken last month. I was there to take care of some business for Johnny.”

She set a tray of cups and saucers down on the coffee table.

“Last month?” she asked, suddenly feeling a little out of her depth.

Bryony gave a tight smile. “Johnny wanted to relaunch his career. He’d had an offer to join the jury on the Australian version of The X Factor. He figured it would give him some much-needed exposure so I went to talk to the producers about his involvement.” She absentmindedly brushed a strand of hair from her brow. “In spite of the divorce Johnny insisted I represent him. I don’t know why, as he was casting me aside for Jasper, but then Jasper was always more like a glorified butler than a genuine manager.”

Odelia swallowed. “You… didn’t like Jasper?”

Bryony swept up her hand. “You can drop the charade now, Miss Poole. We both know perfectly well why you’re here. I don’t know how, but you discovered my little secret, didn’t you? You discovered I killed Johnny.”

“No, I…” But then she noticed the small revolver in Bryony’s hand.

“How did you find out? Was it something I said?” Her eyes quickly cut to the picture. “I should never have left that out in the open.”

“You got the venom when you were over there,” she said.

“Yes. It wasn’t hard. They gave me a tour of one of those reptile parks, and showed me where they kept the venom they collect to create anti-venom. It wasn’t difficult for me to grab some and bring it back to the States.”

“You do know that spider venom isn’t lethal when ingested?”

Bryony stared at her. “What are you talking about? It killed Johnny, didn’t it?”

“Only because he had a preexisting heart condition. If he’d been healthy he would have survived.”

Bryony gave an annoyed shrug. “Who cares? He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“But why?” she asked. “Why would you want to kill your husband?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know,” said Bryony. “I’m sure you figured it all out before you set foot in here. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t bring your uncle along this time, to place me under arrest. Or perhaps you weren’t entirely sure and decided to confront me first?” She waved the gun. “Bad idea, Miss Poole. Very bad idea.”

“You’re not going to kill me, are you?” she asked, frozen to the spot.

“Move over to the window,” Bryony said.

Odelia did as she was told, and saw that a blue tarp was placed between the couch and the window. Oh, God. Bryony was going to kill her.

“The painters are coming in tomorrow,” Bryony explained. “But they’ll just have to find themselves another piece of plastic, won’t they?”

“But why?” she asked, tears springing to her eyes.

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re here to arrest me. And I can’t have that.”

“I can’t arrest you. I’m not a cop.”

“You sure act like one. And your uncle seems to consider you his deputy. Did you tell him about me?”

She shook her head, living through this entire scene like a dream. She’d never been threatened before, and definitely not been on the verge of being shot before, and her preservation instincts were decidedly slow to respond to this crisis. “I honestly didn’t know you killed Johnny,” she said now.

Bryony shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You know now, so I can’t let you live.”

“But why did you kill him?”

“And here I thought you were so smart. The man was going to divorce me. After all those years he was going to leave me and marry that fool Jasper. After I spent a fortune and my entire life turning him into a star he was going to give me a measly annuity. Not even a lump sum but a paltry allowance.”

“You could have gotten a lawyer and gotten a better deal.”

“I couldn’t. We signed a prenup.”

“In Johnny’s favor? I thought he was the pauper and you the rich girl?”

Bryony shifted the gun to her other hand. “Nicely put. And you’re right. I was rich and Johnny was poor, which is exactly why my father demanded we sign a prenup. Unfortunately I neglected to include a clause that would grant me a portion of moneys earned during our marriage, only that we’d both get back what we’d put in.”

“Which for you was your entire fortune, right?”

“Wrong. I never invested anything. My father did, on my request. Upon divorce, I get back exactly what I put in: nothing. And Johnny gets to keep what he made throughout our marriage. Very unfair, but there you have it.”

“So he was going to leave you with an annuity? That seems harsh.”

“It was. Since his career was in decline—or in a state of rigor mortis, to be exact—and he spent every cent he owned on his very expensive hobbies, his fortune had dwindled. He’d effectively blown most of my money and his.”

“So these songs he’d recorded—”

“Were for his comeback record. Which he hoped would put him back on top. There was still a nice chunk of change left, but he was keeping it.”

“And so you decided you needed to kill him now or lose out forever.”

She smiled. “You are a great reporter, Miss Poole. Yes, Johnny called me to the house a couple of weeks ago, and said he wanted to marry Jasper. Make things official between them. He wanted a divorce. He said he’d always take care of me, and offered me the annuity scheme.” She shook her head. “I was livid. After spending the best years of my life and my family’s fortune on this man, he was going to fob me off with a few alms? No way. So I decided to get rid of him before the divorce, and salvage what I could from this mess.”

“And get rid of Jasper in the process.”

“Of course. I never liked that horrid little man. Jail is too good for him.”

“So how did you do it?” She needed to buy time. Time to find a solution.

“Well, I thought long and hard about a way to kill the bastard. It’s not easy to kill a person and get away with it if you’ve never done it before.” She sounded bemused now, as if the entire murder proposition had been nothing but an intriguing puzzle to her. “I thought about an overdose, which would have looked plausible, but Johnny was always very careful about his dope. The idea came to me when I was in Australia. Some news segment about a boy who’d been bitten by the world’s deadliest spider. As luck would have it, they invited me to visit the reptile center and that’s where I got the venom.”

“But how did you get Jasper’s fingerprint on the vial?”

She waved a hand. “I’d seen that on a crime show. I used a piece of tape to lift Jasper’s prints from a wine glass when I was over at Johnny’s house, and attach them to the vial. It was actually a lot easier than I thought.”

“Clever,” said Odelia.

“Yes, the plan was very straightforward and easy,” said Bryony, “which told me it was the right thing to do. Now all I need to do is get rid of you.”

“My uncle will come looking. He’ll know what you did.”

“I don’t think so, hon. I’ll just get rid of your car and the body and your uncle will simply think you skedaddled.”

“I would never do that.”

“Well, you’re going to.” She raised the gun. “Please lie down, Miss Poole. I don’t want any blood on my curtains. I like my murders nice and tidy.”