Chapter Sixty-One Judson
Chapter Sixty-One
Judson
I had an appointment with Maria’s boss at the hospital. Addie Brown’s office was on the fifth floor, and she oversaw the nurses. She’d hired Maria eight years earlier.
I should’ve spoken to her days ago, but Gabe’s and Amy’s deaths had forced delays. Now it was time to learn more about Maria Hale Cooper Durant.
Mrs. Brown was at her desk, a phone tucked under her chin. Dark hair pulled into a ponytail sharpened the planes of her face, making her green eyes seem more direct.
She ended her call when I knocked. Rising, she extended her hand. “Agent Blackwood.”
“Mrs. Brown. Thank you for seeing me.”
“Of course.” She motioned me toward a chair. “Everyone here will do whatever they can to help you find out what happened to Maria. She was one of the best nurses I ever worked with. We all loved her.”
“That’s what I’ve heard. Her death is a terrible loss.” I drew in a slow breath, knowing the tough questions would be necessary. “Can you tell me anything about her personal life? Did any issues bleed over from home to office?”
Her fingers curled into fists and then, with effort, unfolded. “I knew she’d been stressed the last year. Her husband’s business wasn’t doing well.”
“I thought he was working steadily since his release.” I could see she was nervous.
“For a while, yes. Maria was happy. They seemed like a solid family. Molly was thriving. Three months ago, Maria started slipping—late for shifts, short with patients. She even started smoking again.”
“Did she ever say what was wrong?”
“I pulled her into my office. She insisted she was fine. I told her to go home for a few days. She came back, and we never had another issue.”
“Did she ever mention Amy Stocker?”
“She didn’t, but other people did. There was plenty of gossip. Someone spotted Gabe with Amy in Richmond and Charlottesville.”
Gabe didn’t need an excuse to be reckless. “Do you have an idea of when Maria found out?”
“Two months ago. It explained all the behavior I just mentioned. But like I said, when she came back from her break, she seemed okay. If she knew about it, she appeared to be dealing. I figured she was biding her time.”
“How so?”
“Divorce, I guess. She wasn’t the type to make a scene. She’d have divorced Gabe when it suited her.”
Pushing aside a spouse’s extramarital affair was tough. Most didn’t just let something like this go so easily. “Gabe thought she was having an affair.”
Mrs. Brown frowned. “She was careful not to mention his name. I don’t think he lived in town. If he had, it would have gotten out.”
“That about the time she stopped showing all signs of worry or distress?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Brown’s smile was genuine. “I’m not sure what happened, but she and Gabe seemed closer than ever.”
“Any idea how someone could get ahold of cyanide?”
Her gaze sharpened. Word of the autopsy had spread. “We have it at the hospital. It’s part of other blended medications, and it’s used in research. It’s also used in local industries and on farms as a pesticide.”
“No shortages at the hospital?”
“No, of course not. We have careful controls.”
“Was Maria involved in inventory?”
“Yes. Many of the nurses are.” She leaned forward. “Maria was a victim. She was poisoned. She’s dead. She wasn’t a thief or a killer.”
“Just covering all the angles. Any idea who would have wanted all three dead?”
“A monster. They’ve left a small child an orphan.”
Monsters rarely saw themselves as evil. They believed they were justified by anger, desperation, or need. But this killer wasn’t reckless. The murders were deliberate.
“Did Gabe ever hint he could kill his wife?”
“I don’t know. Whenever I saw him, he was smiling.”
“Did anyone here know Amy Stocker?”
“She’s a real estate agent. She handled the sale of my house.”
“What were your impressions of her?”
“Professional. Very competent.”
“And Raine Hale?” I asked.
“Why do you bring her up? She moved away years ago.”
“Raine and Maria were cousins. They argued a year ago about money. Curious what their relationship was like now.”
Mrs. Brown hesitated, her voice dropping. “Maria didn’t like her.”
“Why not?”
“I went out for drinks with Maria and several nurses about two months ago. A coworker’s birthday. We all had a few too many drinks. The Hale estate came up.”
“Why?”
“Raine’s husband, Ken, had visited the property with a developer.”
“Really? How’d you know?”
She shrugged. “Small town. Word gets around.”
Ken hadn’t bothered to share. And I’d bet money he hadn’t told Raine. “And this got back to Maria?”
“I asked her about it. A big project like that could mean real jobs in the area. I thought she might know. She didn’t. And it made her mad. She never understood how Raine could walk away from the Hale estate. Said the trust was wasted on the wrong cousin.”
“Did Maria say anything else about Raine?”
“No. She regretted sharing what she had. She said as much the next time we saw each other at work.” Mrs. Brown shook her head. “Maria was one of my best nurses. She was a great mother. And I know she cared about her husband. She wasn’t a bad person.”
Good people did bad things. Bad people did good things. “Thank you for your thoughts.”
“Sure.”
As I left the hospital, I called Meg.
“Agent Blackwood.” Clipped, businesslike.
“You collected all the medications in the Durant and Stocker houses, correct?”
“All bagged and tagged. Ibuprofen, cold medicine, children’s aspirin, and supplements—nothing unusual.”
“Have you tested any of them?”
“We’ve dusted all the bottles and pulled prints. No prints that shouldn’t be there.”
“All three of our victims died within five days of each other.”
Who had poisoned them? “Were there a lot of pills left in each bottle?”
“A few. Most were nearly empty. Three to five pills each.”
“Tell the lab to test every tablet.”
A beat. “Cyanide in the medicine bottles—quiet, patient. The perfect way to kill.”
Gabe had motive. A wife pressuring him to end an affair. A girlfriend who’d set fire to the attic while his daughter was present.
“I have another bit of information,” Meg said.
“Okay.”
“Remember me mentioning I had to collect evidence on a burned-out car in Albemarle County?”
“Vaguely.”
“It belonged to Amy Stocker.”
“Really?”
“It was abandoned in a field and set on fire.”
“Do you know when?”
“Not exactly. But there are a few warehouses nearby. Still collecting camera footage. Had the car towed to the forensic bay.”
“Find anything?”
“Mostly trashed by the fire. But we’re working on it.”
Fire destroyed a lot, but not all the evidence. Something always survived. “Did you see the car on the Hale House camera footage?”
“No.”
I shifted gears. “What about the bones we found in the attic?”
“Canine. Mixed breed. The bones were brittle and dry. The archaeologist at the university thinks it’s been dead between fifteen to twenty years.”
About the time Mrs. Hale died. “How did the animal die?”
“No markers of violence on the skeleton. So she scraped the inside of the femur and dug out a molar.”
“Out with it, Meg.”
A pause. “The animal was poisoned.”
“Cyanide?”
“That’s right.”
Testing the dose, building nerve. This meant someone tied to Hale House had been dabbling in poison for decades.
Any doubts about exhuming Mrs. Hale were gone.