Little Fox Cottage Read online

  Hector nodded. "I covered for him at the end of March. He ran off and got wasted. He was down by the railroad tracks with some people who gave him heroin."

  "Heroin?" Father Anselm crossed himself. "That poor soul."

  "But I delivered his meals for him so no one knew," Hector said. "And then he tried to get clean again. But he was ashamed."

  "You're saying you worked his shift at the senior meals program the day the police were asking about? You're the one who took the prescription to the pharmacy?"

  Hector nodded. "He didn't want to say he wasn't at work that day because he thought he'd go to prison for lying about the chip."

  "Oh, Hector. Do you understand they think he poisoned those ladies?"

  "Poisoned ladies?" Hector looked stricken. "Who would want to poison ladies?"

  "The prescription you took to the pharmacy made Helena very sick," Nico explained gently.

  He was even more shocked than before. "No one would hurt Helena. That would be a sin and bad karma." He crossed himself.

  Father Anselm started to go to him, but Nico waved him back. "This is very important, Hector. You took the prescription to the pharmacy. Why?"

  "'Cause it was on the kitchen counter. That's always how it was. The old people would have the paper on the counter, and we'd drop 'em off at the pharmacy for 'em."

  "So it was just lying there, on the counter. You don't know where it came from?"

  Hector shook his head.

  Nico looked at the padre. "We have to go right now."

  Father Anselm nodded.

  "Come on, Hector," Nico said. He helped him to his feet. "We're going to the sheriff's station and tell Captain Ryan all about this."

  "Okay," Hector said, getting up. "But do you think the sheriff dude will make Wade give back his one-month chip?"

  Nico sighed. "I think he might have more important things to worry about than that right now."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A FEW DAYS LATER, Nico finished carefully hand-printing the final note for his last patient of the day's file. The medical clinic was quiet, since he had stayed behind after closing to finish up paperwork. He would be so glad when the new computer system was installed and he could go back to digital charting. And not only because his hand was getting a cramp from all these paper charts.

  He set the pages on Fiona O'Keeffe's desk so she could file them in the morning, then stretched his fingers to ease the ache. He touched the chip she had glued to her name plate. 27 years of sobriety. Would he make it, too?

  His phone beeped and he looked at the number, then hit answer. "Papa? You okay?" he asked in Spanish.

  "I just vacuumed the living room," his dad said. "It was dirty. Now the carpet has those straight lines across it."

  Nico laughed. His father used to do that with the lawnmower, too. Perfectly straight lines across the yards. "But you shouldn't be doing anything strenuous, papa."

  "Why not? I'm not an old man yet."

  "Of course not. How was your first acupuncture treatment?"

  "Wonderful. The man put all those needles in and now I feel wonderful. I think I'll go prune the roses."

  "Those must have been some good needles. Don't you think you should take it easy?"

  "Maybe," his father said. "A little bit easy. So how are you doing, son?"

  "Okay," Nico said. "I am doing what I need to do to get better."

  "You going to come back here soon?"

  "Listen, papa," he said, feeling himself choking up. "I'm not sure how long it will be before I can go back to my old job at the hospital emergency department. I just might not be strong enough for a long time."

  "Do you have to go back to your old job?"

  "Don't you want me to?"

  "I'll miss you," his father said. "But if you stay up there, you could be happy."

  "You wouldn't have to miss me. If I stayed here permanently, you could come up and live with me here. I told you it's very pretty and peaceful. But I know it's a bit of a letdown after what I said I was going to do."

  "What you said you'd do? I remember when you were little, and you said you were going to do something good in the world. That's all your mama and I ever dreamed of for you. And for Diego, rest his soul. For you to do something good in the world, and to be safe and happy, surrounded by people who love you. Is there anything more important?"

  Nico stopped in the middle of taking off his white coat. "But I'm just dealing with stuffy noses and poison oak here." He started to say, I'm not doing anything important, but Dr. Lil's lecture echoed in his mind, and he stopped himself.

  "I pray for you every day, Nico. I pray that you are safe, and you are happy, and you do something good in the world. That's enough for one life."

  "Yeah," he said softly. "That may be enough for one life."

  "And you save people's lives. Those old ladies, you saved them. You were so smart to figure out they took too much medicine."

  "That's not so smart, papa. And the new computer system will make sure it doesn't happen again."

  "How can the computer know? Doesn't the doctor know what's the right medicine?"

  "Of course," Nico said. He grabbed his keys, took a last look around, then shut off the lights and headed for the door. "But people sometimes have more than one doctor. And they might get their medicines filled at more than one pharmacy. So they end up with all kinds of medicines and no one knows to check for drug interactions. Mistakes happen all the time. We hope the computer will help prevent that from happening in the future."

  He got to the door and fiddled with the key. He was still trying to get the hang of the temperamental thing, and it often got stuck in the lock. He fussed at it, only half-listening to his father's voice.

  "When you get old, that happens," his father was saying. "I've got a bunch of old medicine I don't even need anymore. When I'm gone, you're gonna have to clean out that medicine cabinet. It's probably full of prescriptions left over from years ago."

  Nico froze halfway out the door of the clinic. "What did you say?"

  "Old medicine, son. After I'm dead you won't need it anymore."

  "I've gotta call you back, papa!"

  He hung up the phone, then ran to the files.

  BREE SCRUBBED at the stove grates. "You know your other cook isn't cleaning these thoroughly, right?"

  "Yeah," Mel said. "I'll get on her about that. She's got two kids at home all summer and she's distracted. You need to be a little more understanding, Kid."

  "You're an old softy, Mel."

  "Am not. I'm a cantankerous old dude, remember?"

  She winked at him. "I remember. I'm going to miss you after this week, you know."

  "But you gotta go make your gourmet garbage at some hoity-toity restaurant instead of working here in the lap of luxury."

  "Don't give me a hard time, Mel. It's what I want to do."

  "I know," he said. "And you'll be good at it." He got out a big platter, the one used for the captain's plate, and set it on her nice clean counter.

  "I just disinfected that," she protested. "I was going to chop some slaw there."

  "The evening cook can chop the slaw. You only have another hour to work before your shift is over and you can use the time refilling the malt vinegar bottles, if you ever finish working on that stove."

  She kept scrubbing. "What are you doing with that platter, anyway?"

  He grinned, a big, happy grin. "I am having a snack."

  "Looks more like you're having a feast."

  "A snack, a feast. Either way, I owe it all to you."

  "To me?"

  He set a brown paper lunch bag next to the platter. "Yup. I owe it to you. We all do." He opened the bag and started pulling out small, round, deep-fried pastries, like puffy little fried bread dough, sprinkled with powdered sugar.

  "Those look good. But I thought you didn't serve any desserts here."

  "These aren't for the customers. They're for me. And I'll let you have one, if you're nice to me."<
br />
  "What are they?"

  "Sopaipillas."

  "Oh, those are sopaipillas? Ah ha." Then she realized why he was grinning. "Sophie made them for you. She remembered her recipe. That means she's getting better. Oh, Mel. I'm happy for you."

  "She came by and told me that she appreciated how I'd always been there for her. She said she didn't blame me for not figuring out what was wrong. I was innocent and not to blame for what happened to her."

  "Of course you weren't to blame."

  "But I felt like I was. I should have realized. But she told me that it wasn't my fault." Then he grinned that same naughty little boy grin she'd seen in the old photograph. "So I asked her out on a date."

  "You did? Congratulations. Or, should I say congratulations?"

  He shrugged. "She said maybe. It's not yes, but it's not a no."

  "That's better than no," Bree said.

  "It sure is. She said she'd never really thought of me that way. But maybe, since I was one of the only guys left around town her own age, she might give me a try."

  "I didn't know she had such a sarcastic sense of humor, Mel. You two sound like a perfect pair."

  "No matter what happens, I'll help her out, and I think she'll let me. She and Helena both will need us all to be there for them now."

  "I wish it never happened."

  "Well, they're both feeling a lot better, thanks to you."

  "Not thanks to me. It would have been found out soon enough even if I never came to Pajaro Bay."

  "But not unless someone compared all the medicine bottles to what was in their charts."

  "It would have happened when Henry moved Helena to a nursing home in Sacramento."

  "But he died before he could do that. So you're the one who figured it out. And that saved them both. So now, life is good."

  "But we never found out who or why."

  "We may never know," Mel said. "Captain Ryan said the case is going cold now. Henry's murderer may never be caught."

  "That's awful," she said.

  "It's over now, though. No one can get away with poisoning anyone, now that we all know about it."

  "I don't know about that," Bree said doubtfully. "The killer must have had a way to get Henry distracted, or to get him to…." She trailed off, staring at Mel. He was holding one of the sopaipillas in his hand, and squirting honey from a little plastic honey bear all over it.

  "Get him to what?" he asked.

  "Get him to willingly swallow the poison."

  "Why would anyone willingly swallow poison?" Mel asked. He raised the honey-covered sopaipilla to his mouth....

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  NICO MET Captain Ryan and the deputy at the end of Tejas Street. They blocked his way when he tried to head for the cottage.

  "But Bree left Mel's Fish Shack fifteen minutes ago! And she's not answering her phone!"

  "We know. None of them are picking up calls. We saw Bree go in to Helena's cottage just as we got here. We've checked all the houses on Tejas Street, so they must all be in there."

  Nico tried to push past them. "Then we have to go in now!"

  "We don't know what's going on in there. We have to be patient."

  "Patient?" Nico pulled away from them and kicked at the grass on the side of the road. "Patient?!"

  SOPHIE HAD A GUN. She had set it on the dining room table, and her hand caressed it as she looked from Helena, seated at the table, to Bree, standing, out of breath, only five feet away. There was a plate of the lovely sopaipillas on the table between them, and Helena sat frozen, staring at them, and at Sophie. Did the gun even have bullets? Was Sophie even sane enough to understand how to use it?

  But she wasn't insane. The look in her eyes wasn't confused, or crazy, or senile. It was cunning.

  "Why, welcome, our little friend Bree Taylor," Sophie said. Her voice sounded completely different, smooth, confident, a bit arrogant. "How nice to see you," she said, picking up the gun. "Come sit at the table with us. Helena and I have been chatting."

  Bree sat down at the table, keeping her hands in plain sight. Her phone rang again, but she ignored it.

  Helena didn't move. None of them did.

  From where she sat, she could see into the kitchen, and noticed the back door was standing wide open. Maisy was lying on the grass. Bree hoped she'd stay there, but the dog spotted her and came running.

  "It's Maisy," she said quickly to Sophie before the dog came into sight. "Don't shoot her, please."

  The dog's claws ticked on the tile floor as she came over and bumped against Bree, knocking into the table. The sopaipillas slid toward Bree and she grabbed the plate, picking up the spilled pastries.

  Bree ordered Maisy to sit, and Maisy did, looking up at her with a big, goofy grin.

  "I wouldn't shoot her," Sophie said, highly offended.

  Sophie rested the gun on the table again, and Bree noticed her hand shook with the same palsy Helena's had. "You took the anti-anxiety pills, too?"

  Sophie looked down at her hand. "It will pass. I had to take a big dose all at once so my blood tests would match Helena's. It'll wear off, I'm sure."

  "Wow. It was all an act," Bree said. "Right up to this moment, I felt sorry for you."

  Bree set down the sopaipilla she'd been holding. Her hand felt greasy, and she rubbed it on her jeans, then patted Maisy under the table to keep her from moving.

  Sophie's hand didn't stray from the gun. "I don't need your pity."

  "No, your victims do."

  Sophie laughed. "Right. Those poor people."

  "What did they ever do to you?"

  The coolness slipped there. "Everything!" she snapped out. But then she calmed herself again, and the smile returned.

  "You were aware the whole time. The lost cat, the confusion, all of it was an act. For my benefit?"

  "You were the unknown. Until Henry started asking questions, I didn't have any problems. And then even after he was gone, you showed up, like his little echo. Badgering everyone, watching everything."

  "You were aware of everything going on."

  "Everything," she said slyly. "'Oh, you poor thing. I hated my father, too,' said little do-gooder Bree. 'You don't have to feel guilty.' Guess what, cupcake. I don't. Never did. The old creep got what he deserved."

  "You aren't sorry at all."

  "Of course I'm not sorry," she said crisply. "All that garbage about poor old papa and you shouldn't feel bad. Of course I didn't feel bad. Why would I feel bad for that mean old man to get what was coming to him? He took everything from me. My life, the career I was entitled to have by birthright. My chance at marriage. Everything. I only felt bad that it took me so long to figure out how to do it. In the end it was so easy. Just give him more medicine."

  "How did you know to overdose your father on migraine medication?"

  "I didn't." She picked up the gun and waved it around a bit to punctuate her thoughts. "I tried all his medicines. I'd hold them back until I built up a big supply, then give a bunch to him all at once. I thought depriving him of them would kill him. Then I figured overdosing him would kill him. But he was a stubborn old cuss. Nothing worked. He was on a dozen different medications. So I tried them all. None of them made a difference. One gave him a stomach ache, but nothing else. Then the last one. I never would have guessed it would be the one. I mean, migraine medicine? How easy was that? I figured heart medicine would kill him, but a headache pill? He had a heart attack, just like that." She snapped her fingers. Then she turned wide eyes on Bree. "And no one cared. No one checked. They just said he died of natural causes and I was free. Can you imagine? It was so easy. If I'd only known, I could have done it years earlier."

  "Weren't you afraid of getting caught?"

  She laughed. "I had already convinced everyone I was out of it, just so I'd have an alibi if they accused me. But they never even did an autopsy." She chuckled some more at the memory of it, and the gun wavered for a second. But only a second. Then it was back pointed at Helen
a's chest.

  "But couldn't you just leave? Wouldn't that have been revenge enough against him?"

  "He needed to pay. He ruined my life by destroying the family business. I would have been famous, like Ramona Robles. She made the tiles, the foxes, and bluebirds, and redwood trees. They're all over town, and they're all her designs. They wrote about her in books, did you know that?"

  Bree shook her head.

  "The great tilemaker. The great artist. Tourists take photographs of them where they can find them in public places. And they pay for home tours to see them in all the cottages. I could have done it, too. I could have made beautiful things that people remembered. I could have had that. But papa took that away from me when he drank the business into bankruptcy."

  "But then why didn't you stop after he was gone? You were free of him. Free to live your life the way you wanted to."

  "Because it was too late! They all had to pay! They had to pay for making me do it. Making me take care of him. Leaving me. Leaving me alone. Going off and living their fancy lives while I was stuck here with him, waiting for that mean old man to die. All of them left me. Emma and Tom left me. Helena and Bill. And Nathan."

  "Yeah. Nathan Falcon. Why him?"

  "He got a divorce. Just after papa died, he got a divorce. I thought surely that meant he had come back for me. That he knew it was our chance to be together. I couldn't have a Madrigal boy, but I would have settled for him. But he said no. 'I don't love you, Sophie,'" she said in a bitter tone. "That's what he said. So I made him sopaipillas."

  "Just like you'd made your father, full of migraine pills."

  "All crushed up," she said sweetly. "Just like. And he ate them and said I was such a good cook. And I said, 'you should have married me then.'"

  "But why do this to Helena? Why poison her? Why not just kill her, too?"

  "Because she stole Bill from me. She took him from me and wouldn't give him back."

  Bree thought back to the photograph of the children. Bill Madrigal with his arm around the pretty young Sophie in the center of the picture. In the center, right where she wanted to be. She bit back the comment she was going to make. "So you wanted her to suffer."