Before I Die, page 20
Michael stood, twitchy and restless. ‘Yeah, well, we can make a good case that she’s a psycho killer all right, but who’s going to believe us? They’re after me for my father’s death. I need to get them off my back, but…’
He shrugged, hopeless, before disappearing off in search of the gents’. Maureen continued to look through the material on the table. A waitress came by to ask if she wanted more tea, coffee or food, but she shook her head. They’d had each had a full Irish breakfast, and even though she’d passed most of her toast to Michael, it still felt as if she’d eaten enough for a week. She sat back, deep in thought.
Michael returned to the table smelling of cannabis. ‘Come on, we should go.’
‘You didn’t… do anything…?’ She was trying to find a tactful way to ask.
He shook his head.
‘Nothing to worry about. Opened a window to have a smoke, that’s all. Hash. Cannabis. Nothing else. Come on, we’ve been here too long anyway.’
Maureen shook her head.
‘Hold on another minute. I’ve got an idea I want to run past you.’ Ignoring his eye roll, Maureen waited until he sat back to the table. ‘We need to incriminate Dolores, right?’
He nodded.
‘You’re the obvious candidate for your father’s murder, and I’m easily dismissed as a crazy old woman. More than ever, now, because I’ve walked out of a nursing home with – please don’t take offence – a known drug user who’s wanted for murder. That, in itself, could be used against me as proof of dementia. That photo of your father? They’ll say you could have taken it yourself, after you killed him. The rest is strange and suggestive, but none of it proves she’s a killer. She can deny it's all hers, there's only your word on what you took from her room.We need more if we’re to get them to even look at the evidence we’ve found. We’ve got to get Dolores to say something, to let her guard down, and we need to tape it.’
She sat back, looking at his face to see his reaction. He was listening. She took that as encouragement. ‘She staged a phone conversation to make me sound crazy. It made me think. Couldn’t we do something like that?’
Michael’s eyes were a bit vague, the effect of his ‘smoke’ no doubt, thought Maureen. He took a while to think before he answered, ‘Yeah, all right, cool, but how would we get her to say anything incriminating? I mean, shit, how would we even get her to talk to us, for that matter? She won’t say anything on a phone – she’s not stupid, and she knows we hate her guts and might be recording her.’
Maureen leaned forward across the table to capture his attention. ‘Listen to me. I’ve been thinking about that. I can be the bait. I can contact her, tell her you gave me all this evidence and I’m going to a solicitor. I don’t think she could resist coming to get the incriminating stuff before having me shunted off to an institution, and you to prison. She likes to play safe. Look at the trouble she went to, to get me out of the way, even when I knew very little… Now I know so much more. I’m a danger to her. We’ve just got to figure out some way of letting her know where I am, without making it too obvious or she’ll smell a trap.’
Michael sat back, relaxed, eyes closed; then he opened them and smiled. ‘I know how to do that. C’mon. I’ll show you what I mean.’
35
Elizabeth looked at the envelope on the table and steeled herself to open it. She knew what it was; it bore the vet’s logo of an intertwined dog and cat in a basket. She’d been looking at it all morning. Now, with a coffee in her hand to sustain her through the ordeal, she reached over and tore it open. The cover letter was from the vet, giving her a brief summary of what to expect from the accompanying report. The paper inside was dense with printed detail, much of it quite technical. She focused on the vet’s note first. It was short and businesslike.
Dear Elizabeth,
As requested, I have had Bailey’s postmortem stomach contents and bloods analysed. The results are rather unexpected. As you will see from the report, the cause of his death would appear to be heroin, and not from his stomach, but via his bloodstream. It would suggest that he was, in some way, injected with the substance. Could this be from a discarded syringe in the laneway, which still contained the drug? It seems farfetched, but no other explanation presents itself. It is all very disturbing. I’m sorry to be the bearer of such news, but I can say that it is likely his end was fast, which may be of some consolation to you. My apologies for the delay in returning these results. The lab I sent the samples to was quite backed up. Anything non-urgent had a minimum two-week wait for processing.
Best wishes, John F Maguire (MRCVS)
Elizabeth read it through twice, then turned to the technical report. It was thorough and detailed, but her chemist training made it very intelligible to her. The lab knew how to charge eccentric old women who wanted their dog’s remains tested for poison, as did the vet, but she didn’t begrudge the money. Bailey had been her loyal companion for twelve years. She wanted to know what had taken him from her. Heroin, though. She found it hard to take in. First Bailey, then Frank. Both heroin deaths. A most improbable coincidence.
As she stood to make another cup of coffee, her thoughts turned to Maureen. Maureen, who had been sure that Frank’s death was not an accident, but murder. Maureen, who had said that Bailey’s death was, in some way, linked. Of course, Maureen didn’t like Dolores; that was why her delusions fixed on the carer as the culprit.
Now, though, Elizabeth was less sure when she thought of Maureen’s ‘delusions’. Could there be anything in it? She thought back to that eventful day at the Active Retired outing. Maureen had certainly seemed quite demented. Ill and confused, anyway. What else had she been saying? Something about being drugged?
Memory jogged, she went in search of her large and practical shoulder bag, which she brought into the kitchen and dropped on the table. Shoving her hand down into its canvas depths and rummaging among the contents, her fingers soon located the plastic sandwich bag Maureen had given her at the outing. She pulled it out and studied it, then took a pinch of the powdery substance and rolled it between finger and thumb. Coarse ground. She put her finger to her tongue and pulled a face at the bitter taste. A slip of paper in the bag gave her a phone number for Alva, Maureen’s daughter. That took foresight on Maureen’s part. She fished it out and put it into her pocket. That done, she put the plastic bag back on the table in front of her and sat, deep in thought.
‘Elizabeth! Lovely to see you. What are you doing back here – not coming back to work, I hope?’ Her old friend looked amazed. He had good reason; she had retired almost ten years before, and although she had kept some contact in the years following, it had dwindled to little more than a meet-up around Christmas for the old guard, some retired, some on the brink. Chris was one of those ‘on the brink’. He had clung on until the age of seventy, but she knew from a conversation at their last Christmas lunch that he was now ready to retire and planned to do so in May, in time to enjoy the summer.
‘Sorry to disturb you on a working day, Chris, but I wondered it you might help me with something. It’s an odd sort of story, but…’ Elizabeth stopped, thinking how best to explain. She was, by nature, more a creature of action than of talk. Her companion nodded and waved her towards the interior of the building.
‘Come on, we’ll have a coffee and chat. It’s my break time, anyway.’ With that, he walked her through reception and used his computerised card to usher her through the security doors and into the corridor of the inner sanctum, the location of offices and labs.
‘New technology. New since my time, anyway.’ Elizabeth was impressed. ‘We just had a key.’
Once seated in the familiar canteen with her bag at her feet, she took a minute to marshall her thoughts, then got down to business in her usual, direct way. She often said, with some pride, that she was not one to beat around the bush. ‘I’ll get straight to the point. It’s like this. I have a friend, Maureen, and she thinks her carer is drugging her.’
She raised her hand to forestall interruption from her friend. ‘Now, before you say it, I know it sounds crazy, and that’s what I thought, too, when she told me first, but it bothers me. A few other odd things have happened… I won’t go into it all, or you’ll think I’m crazy, too, but let’s just say I’d like to rule it out. Just to be certain. She gave me some powder that she thinks has been put into her food. I took a quick look, and it could be ground-up pills.’ She looked at his face, trying to gauge his reaction. ‘I know it seems a bit…’ She trailed off, aware of how bizarre it did sound.
Chris looked intrigued. ‘Well, I’d be happy to take a look. Don’t worry, after all the years I’ve known you, I know you’re not a fanciful person. Quite the opposite. Have you got it with you?’
In answer, Elizabeth pulled the plastic bag from her pocket and dropped it on the table.
He picked it up and shook it, then felt the powder inside.
‘Yes. I see what you mean. Coarse and uneven. It could be something ground up… You want me to have it analysed? Opiates and bezodiazapines, that sort of thing? I can get somebody to run it through a few tests for me.’
‘I’d be grateful.’ Her tone was abrupt. She found it hard to ask for favours. ‘Maureen’s a friend. If nothing else, it might set her mind at rest. Mine too, of course. I don’t mind paying for it…?’
Chris shook his head, smiling. ‘No need. There has to be some perks of this job. Anyway, I’m retiring in a few weeks, so if they don’t like it, what can they do, fire me?’
Elizabeth gave a nod of appreciation. She had gone to Chris because he had always been efficient and pragmatic. Her decision had been vindicated. The conversation turned to chat about mutual friends and acquaintances and talk of changes in the industry in which both had been employed for much of their adult lives.
She felt a sense of lightness as she left the building. Maureen had disturbed her. Her descent into dementia had been so rapid, and her accusations against Dolores were so vehement. Now, with any luck, the powder would prove harmless and she could put the matter behind her. Her common-sense brain told her that it would all turn out to be nothing. Didn’t it always? There would be a simple explanation. What was that old saying? When you hear hoofbeats, don’t look for unicorns.
It was only when she was back at home, and her eye fell on the vet’s report, that a doubt crept back. Poor Bailey. What a strange way to die. And Frank. Putting the thought aside, she donned her gardening gloves and headed for the small patch of garden that was, for her, the apartment’s main asset. She liked to keep busy. It would be nothing. She was sure of it. Just a coincidence. As she opened the back door, she held it just a fraction longer than needed before remembering that Bailey wasn’t at her heel. Some thoughts were hard to push aside. Even for a practical person like herself.
36
Michael stalked, restless, around the room. It depressed him to be back in his old place, among the wreckage caused by Creavey. He had drained the last drops of sticky green liquid from his bottle of methadone some hours earlier, and he was beginning to feel the familiar crawling ache in his bones that heralded withdrawal. He checked Maureen’s phone again. It had everything they needed to record a conversation. Maureen had been amazed when he’d told her just what her expensive iPhone could do. She’d only ever used it for email or to send texts and make calls. It had plenty of memory space, too, since she’d never stored anything on it.
They’d spent some time testing its range. To make this work, they’d need to get Dolores into the room and close to the window ledge, where the phone was to be hidden under some old clothes and junk. From there, the phone could be left plugged into a nearby socket, so no risk of running out of battery at the vital moment. The socket itself was dangling from the wall, its yellowed, plastic casing half-smashed, but they’d tested it, and it was still working.
‘What time is it?’ Michael’s voice came out jerky and abrupt. His phone tinged at regular intervals, heralding incoming texts, but although he twitched each time, he didn’t check the message. He was struggling to hold it together. Maureen looked at the plugged-in phone for the time.
‘Three forty-five. If we’re going to do this, it’s almost time to get going?’ She looked nervous.
Michael took a breath.
‘Yeah. What time is the next train coming past?’ Maureen had googled the timetable and made a list. He had to admit she was on the ball. And tough. She was determined to see things through, no matter what. Without a soothing blast of hash to keep him going, he was feeling a lot more windy about the whole business and wondering whether he should have just done a runner. Maybe to Galway for a bit. They’d still be looking for him though, even there. Cops and dealers. On the other hand, if this worked… If.
He scooped up a jacket from the pile of clothes in the corner and wrapped it around himself. The room was freezing, and he had the shakes. Maureen was studying the train schedule and making plans. He didn’t want her to see how bad he was. He was staying focused, just about, but he needed something. Soon.
‘There’s one every five minutes after four o’clock,’ she said ‘Rush-hour commuter trains. I suggest we aim to be talking to her at five past four. I’ll key in the number at three minutes past. We want to be sure she hears that train going by as it enters the station. Then we give her time to make her way in. That will take at least forty-five minutes if she takes the train, allowing for a walk to the station. It will be more, at that time of day, if she drives.’ Maureen spoke with precision. Michael was impressed.
‘You’re really not bothered by all this, are you?’
Maureen sighed. ‘Oh, I am. Of course I am. But this is our only chance to get Dolores and to clear up the whole mess. Whatever happens, it can’t be worse than me ending up in a home. I just keep telling myself that. And I want that woman in gaol. She can’t get away with what she did to poor Frank. And others, too, it looks like.’ She looked at Michael. ‘What about you? Are you holding up all right? Remember, it’s your best chance, too. It might be your only chance. You want to get her for what she did to your father, and you want to get out from under that murder accusation… you just keep telling yourself that, okay?’
She looked into his face as she spoke, her expression a little anxious. He moved away, uneasy, convinced she was checking him for signs of withdrawal. He liked Maureen, but he knew she didn’t miss much.
Maureen surveyed the room, planning. After a minute, she pushed the table over towards the window ledge. ‘We’ll put the photos and other evidence on the table. That will bring her close to the phone.’ She turned to Michael. ‘You’ve got everything?’
He nodded and emptied the evidence on to the table.
‘Should we put all of it out…?’ He was cautious.
Maureen hesitated, thinking about that. ‘We’ll need at least the two photographs. She needs to see something to get her talking. That envelope of documents could be left, too. Maybe we should keep back the travel card, just in case. It’s one solid link to another death.’
Michael nodded. ‘Yeah, okay. We should photograph everything anyway and email it to ourselves. That way, if she managed to grab the stuff, we’d still have a record.’ With that thought, he spread the photographs, travel card, and other bits from Dolores’s drawer and, using Maureen’s phone, took pictures of them all. ‘Where do you want to send them?’
Maureen thought for a minute, then answered, ‘To myself, of course, and a copy to you, and then to Alva. But can you put my phone on silent or something like that? Once Alva gets a message from me, she’s likely to start ringing and texting, and we can’t deal with that as well as Dolores.’
Michael’s fingers worked fast; then he set the phone back in its concealed place on the window ledge.
‘I think we’re all set.’ Maureen looked again at the phone. ‘You know, you’ve given me another idea. We should send Dolores a copy of the photographs, too. Before we make the call. We want her to think we’re threatening her to make her go away, or else, maybe, trying to get her to say something incriminating over the phone. She won’t, of course, she’s too sharp for that. We could do that now; then we phone her in –’ she checked the time again ‘– five minutes.’
Michael nodded and picked up the phone. Maureen watched as he attached the pictures and pressed send. ‘I never thought I’d have reason to use her phone number. I remember when she put it there. She just grabbed my phone and insisted on doing it. I was furious. She was still pretending to be my friend, of course. My carer.’ Her voice took on a bitter twist.
‘We’ll get her.’ Michael sounded more confident than he felt. Four minutes. He pulled out his own phone and distracted himself with it. Maureen stood alert at the window, watching the time tick past. At the two-minute point, her hand went to the phone, but she stalled and let more seconds pass. At one minute, she picked up the phone and began to key in the number, then stood, waiting. Michael joined her at the window for the final countdown.
‘Okay, go.’ Michael’s voice was tense. His head was close to hers as he listened to the call. Maureen pressed the button, and they heard Dolores’s phone ring at the other end. At four rings, Maureen muttered to herself. Michael felt a tension in his chest. What if Dolores didn’t answer?
At six rings, they heard the familiar, abrupt voice.
‘Hola. Yes, who is this?’ Dolores sounded impatient, as if she’d been interrupted doing something important. Maureen froze for a second, then regained her voice.
‘Dolores? This is Maureen. I need to tell you something.’ She stopped and cleared her dry throat. Michael squeezed her arm. He could see that she was nervous. Dolores cut in before she could resume talking, her voice a master class of fake concern.
‘Oh, it is Maureen! Gracias a Dios, that is good, you are all right, not dead in the street. We are so worried. You know your daughter looks for you, yes? It is not nice, to go away like that… You are where? You tell me and I will come and get you… bring you back safe to your family.’
