Shadows at the Fair (15 page)

Will reached in through the open window and tentatively touched Joe’s shoulder. Joe’s head lurched up as he realized someone was there.

His face was swollen with tears; his eyes bloodshot. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who to call.” Joe’s voice was low, but desperate. His words came out distinctly, one at a time, like bullets fired consecutively. “It’s Susan. She’s gone. They couldn’t do anything to bring her out of the coma, and she just died.” Joe reached out for Maggie’s hand. “You were good to Susan; you tried to help. I don’t know what to do.”

Maggie felt as though someone had just hit her so hard she couldn’t breathe. For a moment none of them said anything; they just looked at one another. Joe sat in the driver’s seat of his van, holding on to Maggie’s hand, while Will put his arm around her shoulders.

“Why?” She finally managed to get out. “What happened?”

Joe shook his head. “They’re not sure. She was ill, of course, and we weren’t sure how long she had to live. But she had been taking new medications and was doing so much better. None of us thought it would be this soon.”

“Why don’t we go inside?” Maggie reached inside her bag for her door key. Long forgotten were any thoughts of sleep or romance. Joe nodded and climbed down, and the two of them followed Maggie into her small room. She sat on the bed and let Joe and Will take the two chairs the motel had arranged companionably near a small round table at the end of the room.

“What was Susan’s illness, Joe?”

He looked surprised. “You didn’t know? She didn’t tell many people; she was never sure how people would react. But I thought people would figure it out.” He looked directly at Will, and then at Maggie. “Susan had AIDS.”

Maggie felt as though she were unsuccessfully trying to swim against a strong current. “AIDS?”

“She’d known she was HIV-positive for three or four years, but about a year ago her T-cell count really started to drop. She was trying all the protease inhibitors along with her AZT and antibiotics, and at first they seemed to be making a difference. Not a big difference, like they have in some people, but her T-cell count was going up.”

“That’s why she was taking all those pills.” Maggie thought of the small cooler. “I just thought she was a health nut, taking vitamins.”

“She always was a bit fanatical about vitamins, too.” Joe almost smiled. “She’s been taking something to cure some part of her ever since I’ve known her. But they weren’t all vitamins.”

Maggie thought quickly. Susan, Harry, Joe. “Are you all HIV-positive?”

Joe forced a smile. “As in, are all you gay people sick?”

Maggie turned red. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just thought, with Susan being infected and all, that probably she got it from Harry, and…”

“And Harry and I were lovers, so I must have it, too?”

She nodded.

“Well, actually, that’s not the way it was. Susan had AIDS. Harry wasn’t HIV-positive, and neither am I.”

“Then?” Will was catching up, fast.

“Susan was married to Harry, but she didn’t get HIV from him. In fact, Harry was pretty obsessive about a number of things.”

Maggie thought back to some of her conversations with Harry about business and silently agreed.

“Well, one of the things Harry was insistent on was safe sex. With anyone. Susan and Harry had a pretty open marriage, and they both had a lot of—friends—over the years. I don’t think Susan knew where she’d picked up HIV.”

“What did Harry think about it?”

“He was very upset; very sad. He made her go to different doctors, try different treatments. That’s why they were getting divorced.”

Will shook his head. “Sorry, Joe; I’m not following. I thought Harry and Susan were getting divorced because Harry wanted to be with you.”

“He already had me, when he wanted me. I loved Harry.” Joe’s eyes began to fill again, and Maggie quickly walked to the bathroom and brought back a box of tissues. Joe blew his nose and started again.

“Harry’s the only man I ever loved. But Harry always did what Harry wanted to do. He said he loved me, but he loved Susan, too. I don’t think they would have gotten divorced if they hadn’t needed the money.”

Maggie remembered Susan had said she’d needed money. “For what?”

“For her medications. Harry and Susan were self-employed; they’d never been able to afford health insurance, and no company wants to insure someone who is HIV-positive. The medications Susan was taking cost almost twenty thousand dollars a year. And that didn’t include the cost of hospitalizations or doctors. As long as they were married, Susan couldn’t get help from Medicaid unless they destroyed the business and went into bankruptcy. They both loved that business. They didn’t want to do that. And they didn’t want to go on welfare. Harry had grown up on welfare. He would have done anything not to go back on it.”

Maggie nodded. “I’m beginning to get it. Susan and Harry were going to get divorced; Susan would get enough money to pay for her medical treatments so she wouldn’t need Medicaid, and she and Harry could still keep the business, even if legally it was now all Harry’s.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s why Susan was so unclear about where she and Harry were going to live after the divorce; they were going to continue living together.”

Joe nodded. “As much as they had before; maybe more, since Susan would probably need more care in the future.”

They all sat, trying to put the whole situation in focus.

“And now Harry is dead, and Susan is dead.”

“She was getting better, too. The T-cell count had improved.” Joe slumped back. “I had decided to take care of her; to try to take Harry’s place. He would have wanted that. I was going to tell her tonight.”

Will said softly, “She knew you cared about her, Joe.”

“She did, Joe,” Maggie added. “When she told Gussie and me about Harry leaving her for you, I kept thinking she would be angry or jealous or have some other strong, negative, emotion. But she didn’t.”

Joe nodded. “She knew I didn’t threaten her relationship with Harry. He’d loved her from the beginning. He was bisexual; she wasn’t. But it didn’t seem to matter to either of them.” He blew his nose again. “And, of course, I was helping by loaning Harry the money.”

Will looked at him. “What money?”

“The money to buy out Susan’s part of the business. Harry didn’t have enough cash to do that, and I inherited some money from my father when he died three years ago.”

Will looked at Maggie, and then back at Joe. “How much did you loan him, Joe?”

“Five hundred thousand dollars.”

Will swallowed a gasp. “Art-Effects is worth a million dollars?” Will looked at Joe in amazement. “Susan and Harry weren’t even staying in the motel. They were sleeping in vans to save expenses!”

“Art-Effects is doing all right. But it isn’t just the antiques. Art-Effects owns Harry and Susan’s loft in New York. That’s worth close to a million by itself. It owns their van. It owns just about everything, except their clothes. And they have a heavy inventory.”

Maggie and Will nodded. Most antiques dealers had huge investments in inventory. It was not unusual for an antiques dealer to be inventory-poor.

“Art-Effects is a solid business. Harry and Susan had it figured so almost everything except their toilet paper was deductible. But the cash flow was slim.” Joe nodded at Maggie’s incredulous expression. “The business is worth at least the million dollars.”

“When did the loan go through?” Will hadn’t talked with Gussie that afternoon, so he hadn’t known about the money. He was still trying to comprehend what Joe was saying.

“I gave him the money last Wednesday, before we started packing up for the show. He wanted to deposit the check so it would clear before he had to make out a check to Susan next week.”

“Did your lawyer draw up the agreement?”

Joe shook his head. “I loved Harry. I trusted him. We didn’t need anything on paper.”

Maggie and Will exchanged looks, and Maggie changed the topic of conversation quickly.

“Joe, wasn’t it hard for you that Harry was still so involved with Susan? I don’t think I could handle someone I loved having other relationships.” Maggie looked at both of them. “And Susan had other relationships, too. Harry had to cope with that.”

Joe shrugged. “Harry and Susan didn’t seem to care about each other’s casual sexual interests. I’ve known them both for several years, although I wasn’t really involved with them until the last year or so. By that time Susan was already ill. I’ve never heard Harry say anything about Susan’s male friends, other than that she was stupid not to have been smarter about them.” He paused. “Harry was really angry about that sometimes. He and Susan had many friends who died of AIDS. They both knew better than to ignore taking obvious precautions. But Susan didn’t want to be bothered. She didn’t think she was in danger.” Joe swallowed hard. “Lots of women think that, you know. They think they won’t get infected as easily as a man—especially a gay man—would.”

“But I’ve read about HIV; even practicing safe sex doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get it.”

“True enough, Maggie. But, according to Harry, Susan never practiced safe sex. She never even tried. Sometimes, after he’d had a few drinks, he would talk about it. About the characters she’d gone off with that they’d hardly met. About the weekends she’d disappear. Harry wasn’t an easy guy, but he was really careful about sex. I don’t think he had that many partners. He had a lot of control in his life.”

Maggie thought about it. Harry had always been the decision maker; the leader. Susan had been the weaker partner. Joe made sense.

“She was involved with Vince?”

Joe nodded. “She had been off and on. During the last couple of months she spent a lot of time with him. She even went on his Asia buying trip without Harry. That was unusual. She seldom left Harry for more than a couple of days.”

“Was Vince serious about her?”

“Who knows? She seemed to think so. But she thought that about a lot of men. She was sometimes like a teenager with a crush. But she always came back to Harry. And—now.” Joe started crying again.

Maggie put her hand on his arm. “Is there anything we can do to help? Is there anyone you’d like us to call? Or maybe we could help with the arrangements?”

Joe shook his head. “No. I can do it. But thank you. I don’t think Harry has any family, but Susan has relatives in Jersey. I’ll call them. And they have a lot of friends. With everything happening so close together, I guess the funerals will be at the same time. It will depend on the medical examiner, too.”

“The medical examiner? Hasn’t he finished with Harry?” Maggie’s mind revolted at the images her words implied.

“Harry? I guess so. But he’s going to have to do an autopsy on Susan.” Joe’s tears were still flowing. “I tried to say that Susan wouldn’t want that; that we all knew she had AIDS. She was so upset when the police told her they’d have to autopsy Harry. But the doctor said there’s a state law requiring anyone who dies within twenty-four hours of being admitted to a hospital to be autopsied unless they’re under the continual care of their own doctor. And the doctors aren’t sure why she went into a coma. I never thought so many awful things could happen in two days. We were just packing up on Thursday night, and now it’s Saturday, and they’re gone.” Joe stood up, looking distractedly around the room. “I have to call Susan’s family. I have to get things organized. I have to do something, or I’ll go crazy.” He headed toward the door.

Will got up. “I’ll go with you.” He looked at Maggie. “I’ll make sure he’s all right.”

Maggie nodded as the door closed.

She would have to tell Gussie. But right now all she could think about was the $500,000 in Harry Findley’s checking account. If Joe hadn’t made any legal agreements about it, then his money was now in Harry’s estate. Which would be inherited by Susan. But now Susan was dead, too. Her relatives in New Jersey would probably get the New York loft, the business, and the money.

Someone had killed Harry. Joe had lost $500,000. Now Susan was dead. What more could happen?

Officer Taggart and Joe were deep in conversation when Maggie arrived at the show the next morning. Exhaustion had caught up with her; she’d slept later than she’d planned and had just had time to pick up a diet cola and a bagel and get to her booth before the doors opened to the Sunday morning crowd. Gussie motored up immediately.

“Maggie! Where have you been? Have you heard?”

“After I called you last night I went to bed, and that’s where I’ve been, like any sane person on a Sunday morning.” Maggie put her can of soda on the corner of the table, balanced the bagel on top, and pulled her cash box, sales book, and calculator out of her red canvas bag. “Heard what?” As she talked, she reached around her neck and twisted her long hair into a knot, securing it with two ivory hairpins, and pulled off the sheets that had covered her prints for the night.

“The police think Susan was murdered.”

Maggie dropped the sheet she’d been folding and sat down heavily.

“Murdered! She had AIDS; she was under stress; it’s horrible enough that she died so soon after Harry. Why would they think she was murdered?”

“You don’t die just from HIV; you die from another type of infection that your immune system can’t fight. The doctors didn’t see any signs of the usual infections, like pneumonia. And you don’t go into a coma as a result of stress.” Gussie paused. “They think she was poisoned. Her throat was burned.”

Officer Taggart appeared next to Maggie. “I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes, Dr. Summer.” He turned to Gussie. “Would you excuse us?”

Gussie nodded and headed back toward her booth.

The officer reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a small spiral notebook and a pen. “I assume Ms. White”—he gestured toward Gussie’s booth—“has informed you that some questions have come up regarding Mrs. Susan Findley’s death?”

Maggie nodded.

“And I understand you were the last person to speak with Mrs. Findley.”

“I may have been. She wasn’t feeling well yesterday afternoon, so I helped her back to her van so she could get some rest.”

Maggie frantically thought back over the last time she’d been with Susan. “Her stomach was upset; she said she was nauseated and faint. She wanted to lie down.” Maggie paused. “Gussie said you think Susan was poisoned.”

“We’ll have to wait for results of the toxicology tests, of course, but Mrs. Findley’s throat appeared to be swollen and slightly burned. She may have ingested poison.”

Maggie tried to think back to Saturday afternoon.

“Susan was taking a lot of medications, and vitamins. They were in a cooler she had with her.”

“We have the cooler. Mr. Cousins brought it to the hospital when the ambulance picked up Mrs. Findley.” Taggart paused and pushed his glasses back up onto his nose. “We’re confirming that the medications contain what they appear to. But nothing in that cooler, taken as prescribed, could have caused Mrs. Findley to react as she did.” He flipped his notebook to another page.

“Did Mrs. Findley appear despondent in any way?”

“Of course she was despondent! Her husband had just been killed. She had AIDS. She didn’t have enough money to buy medication. Yesterday wasn’t exactly a time for celebration.” Maggie forced herself to slow down a bit. “But if you’re asking if Susan seemed about to commit suicide, then the answer is no. She was tired; she was discouraged; she was having trouble focusing on what she would do next. But she was trying remarkably hard to pull everything together.”

“So you don’t think she would have intentionally taken an overdose of anything?”

“No!”

“How upset was she? Upset enough to have taken incorrect dosages of her medications?”

Maggie thought a moment. “I don’t think so. She knew her medications. Actually, she was somewhat of a health nut. I can’t see Susan making a mistake about medication, even if she was upset.” Maggie thought of the dishes of radishes Susan had been almost obsessive about last year. “She was exhausted when she left here. I helped her to her van so she could lie down because I was afraid she might faint; she said she felt light-headed.”

“Did you stay with her all the way to her van?”

“Yes.” Susan had seemed so fragile; her skin had been so white, and she had been so vulnerable. “I was afraid she might collapse; she was very pale.” Maggie reached up and tucked an escaping strand of hair into the knot at the nape of her neck. “I carried the cooler; she had it with her during the show, and I had seen her taking some pills from it.”

“Did she take anything while you were with her at her van?”

“No. She lay down, and I covered her with a blanket. I just thought she was exhausted from stress. After all, her husband had just been murdered.”

“Did you know she had AIDS?”

“Not until Joe—Mr. Cousins—told me last night.”

“Was anyone else near Mrs. Findley’s van?”

“There were customers near the refreshment stands in the south field, but no one near the vans.” Maggie thought carefully. “No, no one was nearby. All the dealers were in the show, of course.”

“So no one knew you had taken Maggie to her van?”

“The dealers here knew: Will Brewer, and the Wyndhams, and Joe, and Gussie. Oh, and we passed Vince; he knew.”

“That’s Vince Thompson, the show manager?”

“Yes.” Maggie tried to remember the details of that walk to the van. “Other people must have seen us, but no one spoke to us, and I was concentrating on Susan. I didn’t notice anyone else.”

Officer Taggart nodded and made some notes. “And what time was that?”

“About four-thirty. I remember because Abe Wyndham had just left to get us some snacks and we were joking that we had to keep going for another hour and a half.” Maggie looked at the policeman. His hair was thinning, and he had combed it over his forehead in an attempt to look less like Humpty-Dumpty. The attempt had failed.

“We were all tired, of course; we had been up late Friday night, after…after Susan found Harry’s body.”

“You said that Mr. Wyndham brought you all snacks; did that include Mrs. Findley?”

“No; she didn’t want anything.” Some customers were looking at Maggie’s anatomy prints. She nodded toward them, and Officer Taggart shrugged agreement.

“May I help you?”

The young woman was holding a print of the torso of a woman.

“This is quite special,” Maggie said, taking it from her. “Unusual because”—Maggie slipped the print out from the plastic envelope protecting it—“the print was designed to show the relation of different internal organs to one another.” She carefully began to fold the print back, revealing a series of three-dimensional foldouts of internal anatomy. “In this case, the print shows the progression of a pregnancy; each sequential fold shows the baby in another month.” Maggie demonstrated. “The final drawing is of the child descending during birth.”

The young woman was intrigued. “Are there many foldout prints like this?”

“Very few; I’ve seen four or five different foldouts of the torso, but only two different ones showing pregnancy. Of course, at that time most doctors were men, and the emphasis was on the male body.” Maggie carefully reinserted the print into the plastic. “I have a similar large print of a tooth, showing the different layers, from a French anatomy book, if you’re interested. I also have a few three-dimensional prints of horses or cows, from veterinary textbooks.”

“I want to show these to my father; he’s a physiology professor.” The young woman looked around. “He and my mother are here someplace.”

Maggie smiled. “Well, you’ll know where the prints are when you see him.” She handed the young woman her card. “If you’re interested in a print of a particular part of the body, I could check my inventory and send you a print on approval. Just give me a call, anytime.”

As the young woman left the booth, Officer Taggart pushed his glasses up. It was getting warm, and his nose looked slippery.

Maggie looked over Taggart’s shoulder. Vince was near Susan’s booth. His jacket was draped over his arm, and he was, almost too casually, carrying something under the jacket. As Maggie watched, he disappeared into Susan’s booth.

“So Mr. Wyndham didn’t bring Mrs. Findley anything to eat.”

“No.”

“Did you see Mrs. Findley eating anything yesterday?”

Maggie thought back. “I brought her a tuna sandwich for lunch, from the concession stand.”

Taggart was taking notes.

“Joe brought her something for breakfast: scrambled eggs on a bagel, I think. I remember thinking that Susan didn’t usually eat anything that wasn’t natural and cooked without fat, but yesterday she was overwhelmed, of course, and I think she ate some food just because people were trying to be kind and were bringing her things.”

Vince was standing in the aisle now, speaking with Will. He didn’t seem to have whatever it was he had been carrying. What had it been? Had he left it in Susan’s booth? The booth had been closed off by placing several straight chairs across the entrance. As she watched, Vince turned and headed back down the aisle.

“Do you remember anyone else bringing her anything to eat?”

“Vince brought Susan some orange juice in the morning. And, of course, she was drinking tea most of the day. Some she made, some Lydia Wyndham made. They always shared herbal teas. Susan said she hadn’t eaten too much, though; I think she just nibbled at what people brought for her.” Maggie looked at him. “Do you think something she ate yesterday was poisoned?”

“It’s possible. There’s no way to test the food. It’s gone.”

“Was anyone else at the show ill? What she ate came from the concession stand, or from one of the local fast-food places.”

“We have no reports of anyone else being ill. We are, of course, checking every possibility.” He closed his notebook and put it back in his inside jacket pocket. “Dr. Summer, will you be staying after the show closes tonight?”

“I was going to pack up and drive back to Jersey late today.” Right now New Jersey seemed a long way from the Rensselaer County Fairgrounds.

“I’d like you to check in with me before you leave. I have your address and telephone number”—he picked up one of her Shadows cards from her table—“and until this issue is solved, you’ll need to be available.”

“Do you mean I can’t go back to Jersey tonight?”

“Right now we have no reason to hold you. Or anyone else. But if Susan Findley didn’t leave her booth from ten
A
.
M
. until four-thirty
P
.
M
. yesterday, then sometime during that period, while she was here, in the booth next to yours, or after she went back to her van, she was poisoned. Until we can identify what the poison was, we won’t be able to guess at how long it took for her to go into the coma, and then to die. Anyone who might have witnessed any irregular situation could help us immensely if they would tell us about it. And, of course, we need to identify anyone who might have given Mrs. Findley something to eat yesterday.”

Maggie winced. Damn the tuna sandwich. She was a suspect, too.

“Do you have any idea of anyone who might have had a reason to think they would to benefit from Mrs. Findley’s death?”

Maggie thought of Joe’s lost money, and of the estate. But she didn’t know who would inherit. She shook her head. “No.”

“Is there anyone you know of who would have wanted Mrs. Findley to die?”

Vince was fed up with Susan. Joe was concerned about her. Harry had loved her, according to Joe.

“I can’t think of any reason anyone would have had to murder her.”

“What about Mr. Findley? During the past thirty-six hours have you thought of anything that might help us to know who might have wanted him dead?”

She shook her head. Harry had been vastly less popular that Susan, but, despite Maggie’s best efforts, she hadn’t been able to figure out who might have killed him.

“Well, if you think of anything, keep in touch. I’m going to be spending the entire day here at the show. We were never enthused about having all of these out-of-towners arriving twice a year to begin with. And two murders in two days? We’re going to have every detective we can pull in from the county here to help today.” He looked her straight in the eye. “And to make sure everyone leaves a forwarding address before they leave tonight.”

Officer Taggart headed up the aisle toward Will’s booth.

The enthusiasm and excitement of Friday afternoon’s setup seemed months ago.