A Rip Roaring Good Time Read online

  We didn't, but Lexie and I nodded simultaneously. This woman was sincere. There was no doubt in my mind she was telling us the absolute truth. Mesmerized, we continued to listen.

  "Peter was devastated when Tori took some of the cyanide out of his workshop and used it to commit suicide. If you aren't as familiar with cyanide as I am from the years of my husband's devotion to his quest, the chemical compound comes in several forms. The form he was using in his experiments was a white crystal powder."

  I actually did know about the various forms of cyanide. I'd read a very informative description of cyanide on something called a "Wikipedia page" and felt I was quite versed on the subject now. And I was sure if it was on the Internet, it had to be true.

  I recalled Wendy mentioning that she'd heard from one of her co-workers at the coroner's lab that the sodium cyanide used to kill Trotter was of the crystal variety, which did, in fact, match the form Tori had utilized for her suicide. But she also mentioned it was probably the most commonly utilized form of cyanide, so not a particularly remarkable discovery.

  Georgia invited us to sit down on her porch swing before she went on with her story. "Peter disposed of every lick of the remaining poison in his shop, and our daughter's death effectively ended his quest to discover a safer version of the fertilizer. He was a broken man after Tori's death. And ironically, all of his exposure over the years to the fertilizer he was trying to improve caused him to contract the same cancer that had killed his friend. Because of his unauthorized experimenting with the product, Hill Fertilizer Corporation was not held responsible for his death."

  I never saw the wrecking ball coming that hit me in the chest at that moment, but it had to have been a large one. The shock waves that went through my body made me shiver from head to toe. I almost fell off the swing.

  Breathlessly, I interrupted Georgia to ask, "Where is this Hill Manufacturing Corporation located?"

  "The factory's in Mohawk, which is a surprisingly tiny town for such a large factory. It's about twenty minutes east of here."

  I glanced at Lexie, who had apparently been hit by the same wrecking ball that nearly took me out. We couldn't apologize to Georgia fast enough. We explained that we'd only used the package ruse to get an opportunity to talk to her. Together, Lexie and I told her the little white lie, embarrassed we'd ever doubted her innocence.

  Lexie put an arm around her friend and said, "We never seriously suspected you or Lori of any involvement in Hayes's murder."

  "Sure seemed that way," Georgia said with a great deal of resentment in her tone.

  I added, "We're sorry, dear. We only hoped we might get some information from you that you'd been reluctant to report to the investigating team for fear of being targeted in the case. And luckily, we succeeded. You made an eye-opening comment that will be a pivotal point in the apprehension of the real killer."

  "Please forgive us for upsetting you," Lexie added. "It was unintentional, Georgia. You know I've always thought very highly of you."

  When Lexie finished speaking, we stood up to leave. Georgia motioned for us to sit back down on the swing. She was somber as she spoke to us.

  "I completely understand, ladies. I've been concerned a great deal about your situation, Lexie. And I want you two to know I'd have helped in any way I could, but I wasn't sure I could handle the emotional turmoil. Lori and I are both seeing a therapist already, and following the added anxiety of Trotter's murder earlier this week, we are both stressed to the limit. It's very disturbing to find yourself feeling delighted about the brutal murder of another human being, even one who you considered despicable. It really makes you wonder what kind of person that makes you in comparison."

  We both assured her we understood her dilemma but that she should never compare herself to a loathsome individual like Trotter. After all, she'd never physically harmed anyone and would never even consider doing so.

  "No, you're right. I wouldn't. And I appreciate you two putting this all into perspective for me," Georgia replied with tears in her eyes.

  We told Georgia we thought we now had the situation under control and the answer to the mystery behind Trotter's murder. We explained that the information she'd shared with us was undoubtedly the break we'd been hoping for and promised her we'd never mention we talked to her when we spoke to the authorities.

  She thanked us for keeping her name out of it, because she never wanted the Piney name to be tied to Trotter Hayes's name again in their lifetimes. She said, "I'm not sure what I could possibly have said to help you solve this case, but I'm awfully glad I said it."

  Georgia expressed her gratitude to Lexie for the catering jobs she'd passed her way and Lexie replied, "You will always be my go-to caterer, and I'll continue to recommend you to other potential clients too. Without exception, you've always done an exemplary job for us, and we appreciate your high standards."

  "Thank you," Georgia said. "I'm sorry you had to make the unnecessary trip over here with the bowl photo."

  "No big rip," Lexie remarked. I had to giggle. "No big rip" was one of my husband's favorite sayings, for obvious reasons. Lexie went on to say, "The trip was worth it just to get your insight into the murder case. We hope you and Lori can both find some peace now that Tori's attacker is no longer in the picture."

  "I have mixed emotions. I'm glad to know he'll never assault another victim, but sorry he met the ungodly fate he did. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy," Georgia said. And then with a sly grin she added, "And I guess my worse enemy would have had to have been Trotter."

  We both hugged Georgia and thanked her for the invaluable information she'd related to us. It was apparent in her expression that even though she wasn't aware of what information she'd related, she was relived she'd been able to assist in some way. Oddly, she didn't ask us who we'd determined to be Trotter's killer. Apparently, she didn't care who killed the ruthless bastard, but was just relieved that somebody did.

  Walking up her sidewalk to the street, I told Lexie I was sorry my idea to recover her bowl had failed. She replied, "I actually believe she's totally convinced my grandmother's bowl belongs to her. So confident, in fact, she felt no need to verify it. And as I said earlier, it's really not a big deal in the scheme of things."

  When we got to the street, we turned right and sprinted to Lexie's car. Mind you, "sprint" is a relative term when you are sixty-eight and the car is seven houses down the street.

  * * *

  As Lexie shifted the car into gear, I asked her if she was thinking the same thing that I was thinking.

  In a quivering voice she replied, "I hope not, because I'm thinking my daughter's very best friend, who spent much of her childhood in our home, might possibly have been behind the death of Trotter Hayes."

  "Yep! That's exactly what I was thinking too. Or, at the very least, she might have had knowledge of the imminent assault on Trotter Hayes before the party commenced. I'm thinking now the text she sent him was a more chilling warning than we'd first assumed."

  "And maybe Trotter's cocky dare is what sent her over the edge." Lexie was thinking back as she continued to voice the thoughts racing through her mind. "I knew Mattie's father owned a big corporation in Mohawk and probably knew at one time the company manufactured fertilizer. But I'd never heard about cyanide being an ingredient in the product. When the girls were young, Mattie and Wendy would spend the day at the factory on days the nanny was off. Wendy told me on several occasions they'd been told by Mattie's dad to stay away from the areas where the toxic chemicals were stored. But I don't think there was anything actually preventing them from entering the storage centers, other than the threat of a harsh punishment being handed down for disobedience. Her dad was rarely home, but terribly strict on the rare occasions when he was."

  "Then Mattie could have acquired the poisonous substance as easily as Peter Piney had," I mused. "But the fact she brought the cyanide to the party with her makes me think she planned the murder and intentionally invited him to t
he party, hoping to get an opportunity to use it."

  "And she'd probably already given him a verbal warning some time prior to the party, maybe even directly after the sexual assault happened," Lexie said. "I just can't imagine a sweetie like Mattie resorting to an act of violence like that, even though, as I said before, she'd do almost anything to protect her best friend."

  I agreed and said, "As you know, Wendy asked Mattie to stop by and teach me a few fundamentals about the iPad. Mattie knew I wanted to learn how to research topics on the Internet to further assist with our own little investigation."

  "Yes, that was one thing that was bothering me, Rapella. Why would she agree to teach you how to perform a Google search that could later lead to her being caught and charged with murder?"

  "I think she agreed to Wendy's request with the idea she could use it as an opportunity to overwhelm me with so much information that I'd ultimately decide it was too much to absorb and give up the notion altogether. I swear she threw every single computer term she could think of into her tutorial. Just before Mattie left that evening, she even joked about trying to teach her grandmother to use a computer, but her elderly student quickly became disenchanted with the idea and decided her time was better spent working in her garden."

  "And Mattie knew you'd ask Wendy to teach you when she could find the time if she didn't agree to instruct you, and could have been afraid you'd be more apt to absorb it if Wendy was more patient and only told you what little you needed to learn in order to perform the task you wanted to do," Lexie added, filling in the gaps of my story. When she finished talking, I started up again.

  "At the time, I'd even felt a bit like she was trying to discourage me in the same fashion she had her grandmother. But I'd pooh-poohed that idea, figuring it was only because she had other things she needed to get taken care of and didn't have a lot of time to devote to me. I was aware that she had a sick baby in her department she was really concerned about, and I admired her commitment to her job."

  "I see," Lexie said with a knowing nod. "She may have decided to aim for the same result with you, but she under-estimated how determined you were. By the way, how did you manage to figure out how to research things on your iPad, considering the boatload of information she fed you in the space of an hour or so?"

  "As soon as she began spitting out information like an Uzi spraying bullets, I tuned her out and started thinking about what I wanted to buy Rip's nephew as a wedding gift. Then I said to myself, Heck! I'll save a little dough and whittle him some kind of trinket, instead. So then I starting going over wedding-related trinket ideas in my head. When I heard the word 'Google' come out of Mattie's mouth, I tuned her back in and concentrated as hard as I could until she abruptly switched to another task she thought I should learn how to do. She thought I should develop something called a 'spreadsheet' to more easily keep track of our monthly budget. Ha! I wanted to tell her that all I needed to know was that when the well ran dry we needed to stop spending money until it filled up again. But instead I just tuned her out again, and in my mind, to try to memorize the details, I went over and over what she'd explained about how to search topics using a search engine, in my case, Google."

  "Good for you, girl!" Lexie exclaimed with sincere praise. "But I'm still puzzled about why Mattie was so involved with our efforts to track down the killer, if she was indeed the killer we were trying to track down."

  "Have you ever heard the phrase, 'Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer'?"

  "Yes, I have. And I get your point," Lexie remarked. "What better way to keep apprised of the developments into the ongoing murder investigation, by both us and the police department, than by inserting herself right into the middle of it? After all, who would suspect someone who seems so set on solving the case?"

  "And as far as motive is concerned, as a child growing up without a mother, and an absentee father who left her in the hands of nannies the majority of the time, her friendship with Wendy, and even you, has to be a very special bond to her. She was probably more upset about Trotter's assault on her best friend than even you and Wendy were," I said. "I recall her saying that when someone hurt Wendy, she was hurt just as badly."

  "Not to mention," Lexie cut in, "that her mother sacrificed her life to give birth to her. And after she was rendered unable to have children herself, the self-serving abortion of Joy's baby probably put her over the edge. Mattie told us she knew in advance about the 'slaughter', as she put it, of Joy and Trotter's unborn child. Working at the women's clinic, she likely had knowledge of the rape and subsequent suicide of Tori Piney too."

  "Wow," was all I could say before Lexie continued.

  "And I know Mattie as well as anyone, having served as a substitute mother figure for her all these years. She's a very emotional individual and can be fiercely passionate about a cause, particularly if it involves children. In the past few years, she's seemed to me to be unraveling bit by bit. I've been a little concerned about her and I know Wendy has too. We both worried that her job as a neo-natal nurse was taking an emotional toll on her."

  "Of course! It'd take a toll on anyone."

  "Except for maybe a psychopath like Trotter Hayes," Lexie said.

  "True," I agreed. "You know, I was optimistically hopeful about the Piney theory, but I am dreadfully confident about this new one."

  Lexie nodded solemnly and asked, "What do you suggest our next move should be? I'm not thrilled about personally approaching Mattie with our suspicions. After all, it might cause a terrible rift between us, or even an irreparable falling out between Mattie and Wendy. In the event it turns out she had no part in the murder, I wouldn't want to have been the cause of driving a wedge between all three of our inter-relationships. Worse yet would be if an unsubstantiated accusation were to cause my daughter and me to become estranged. That would break my heart, you know."

  "It would break mine too," I agreed. "I also have no burning desire to alienate either girl. But given the circumstances, I think it should be Rip and I who approach her. I don't think we should mention anything about this to any of the others until after the fact, especially Wendy. Only Rip should be brought into this situation for now. Don't you agree?"

  "Yes, I guess so," she replied, although I knew her heart wasn't in it. I knew she was thinking it might prove very difficult for her to keep something as important as this from her husband, and more difficult still, from her daughter. She suggested a change in dinner plans. "Instead of having the barbecue we purchased for supper, let's save it for lunch tomorrow. I'll come up with a reason to take everyone out to eat and you two can beg off to go pick up your trailer and get some rest, or something else totally believable. Then you can call Mattie and invite her over. Be subtle but make the reason so compelling she'll feel obligated to comply with your request. Maybe you could just casually mention you'd seen the text from Trotter when you picked her phone up off the floor. And then you'll be able to judge how she reacts to your comment. Can you handle that, Rapella?"

  "Is the Pope Catholic? Absolutely! Don't worry, Lexie, Rip and I will take care of it. We'll be diplomatic, and, of course, understanding and compassionate. We can just ease into the conversation concerning her exchange of texts with Hayes and maybe she'll give us some clue as to any part she might have played in the murder. We'll be so cunning she won't know what hit her until she's being led away to jail. If she's guilty, that is."

  "Oh, my! I don't even want to think about that happening. Don't forget we're operating on a hunch, Rapella. Mattie may be innocent, and we don't want to give her any indication we think she might be guilty of a crime she may not have committed. We certainly don't want to out and out accuse her of murder. You weren't planning to approach your meeting with her tonight that way, were you?" Lexie asked anxiously.

  "Do teddy bears poop in the woods?"

  "Uh—"

  "No, they don't. They're toys, not real animals." I supplied the answer for her. "Don't worry, Lexie. Rip and I can handle this.
He's had a lifetime of experience preparing for this kind of confrontation. I'd lay money that Rip could negotiate with a kitten and get it to crawl down a tall tree on its own. He can surely negotiate with Mattie and get her to admit any part she may have played in this matter too. But don't worry, we'll be careful not to cause any irreparable harm if it turns out the girl had nothing to do with Trotter's death. But that's not an eventuality we're apt to have to deal with, I'm afraid."

  Lexie didn't appear to be convinced about the diplomacy Rip and I were apt to utilize, but she agreed with the plan. I knew considering the possible outcome of our meeting with Mattie had raised her anxiety level to an all-time high. This time I was praying for everyone's sake that we were dead wrong about the killer.

  Chapter 19

  Rip was no more anxious to confront Mattie Hill than I was. He fought to have Lexie and me contact Detective Russell and turn the information over to him. "I may have a law enforcement background, but I'm nothing but a visiting citizen here in Rockdale, or anywhere else now, for that matter," he argued. "I don't want to overstep my bounds and I can assure you that Wyatt, as a local detective, wouldn't want me to put my nose in where it doesn't belong either. As a former police officer, I know how frustrating it can be when citizens take it upon themselves to exact justice. It's not their place, or yours and mine, to take the law into our own hands. It almost never turns out well, and I can see where this situation could end badly as well. I still think we should bring Detective Johnston into this and let him handle it from here on out."

  "I don't want Wyatt to put his neck on the line. Chief Smith would have his job if he found out Wyatt was going behind his back and taking suggestions from us. The big buffoon considers Lexie and me as no more than 'old airheads'. And if we don't approach Mattie with our suspicions, who will? Besides, do you recall how successful we were in getting the detectives to take our Piney theory seriously?" I asked.