Chapter 7
Back at the house, the men unloaded both bags of mail—her plastic one with mail directly from her box and the USPS canvas bag with all the overflow. She walked into the kitchen without even looking at them. She knew what the letters would say. This trip into the poisonous past was not one she wanted to take. After putting on coffee, she turned to find Steve ordering pizza. She laughed. “Good, you took me seriously.” Then she spun and snapped, “You’ll have to pick it up. No one gets to know I’m here.”
He stared at her to see if she was serious, then nodded.
She was still hesitant about having the two of them here with her bags of hate mail. But, if ever she needed to accept an olive branch, it would be this one. She stared at the huge canvas bag like it was a deadly snake, ready to strike out and bite her.
London studied her face and said, “This has to be difficult.”
“It was very difficult,” she replied calmly. “I don’t want anything in there. I have seen it a hundred times over.”
But she had to make sure. She snapped on plastic gloves again, stepped forward and pulled out the mail that had been in her box and casually sorted through it on her kitchen table. A couple things were from banks, but even they were mostly junk. She got a garbage bag and designated it as such. She sorted through the top of the heap.
A handful she figured belonged to the hate file. She tossed them at London and said, “You can start with these.”
When it came to the postal bag, Fern upended it on the floor. Just as she turned to toss the bag aside, she caught sight of pale green tendrils, and froze.
London reached for an envelope as it slid closer to him. The envelope was thicker than the others.
She raised her hand. Studying the shade of green, she saw the energy around it. She moved it off to the side and said, “You don’t want to touch that one.”
He stared at her, studied the letter, focused back on her again and asked, “Why?”
“Because it’s been tainted with belladonna berries. Four of them are enough to kill a child.”
She studied the pile of envelopes and said, “Don’t touch anything.”
London and Steve watched her very carefully.
She sorted through the heap, but saw the green tendrils reaching for her at the bottom of the pile. She carefully pulled out another suspicious envelope. “This one’s been dosed with aconite—monkshood.” She studied the two envelopes and said, “They’re both from the same person.”
The two men neared her, and London asked, “And how do you know there’s something in them?”
“Outside of the obvious?” She shrugged. “One has a rare form of belladonna. In a homeopathic tincture, it’s not harmful, but too much of it in its raw form, and it is. There’s any number of herbs he could have used rather easily. It was somebody who had access to the plants, and chose ones I’d have access to as well. The belladonna and monkshood each grow at the Garden of Death in England.” She paused, then added, “Of course neither are hard to grow and both are easily available over the Internet.”
“You need to give us more details on the plants. And how would anyone know what plants were used?”
She shrugged. “In many cases the poisonous ones are classic cottage plants. They’re often found in backyards and empty lots. People don’t know the dangers. A laurel plant variety will give you blisters on your skin for up to six or seven years.”
She glanced around at the envelopes and said, “Thankfully, none of that is here.”
“Blisters for seven years?”
She nodded. “At the Garden of Death, we must wear full protective suits when working around the plants. Just skin contact is enough to cause horrific rashes, itching, and blisters.” She shrugged. “And many are found in everyday gardens.”
Both men looked at each other and then back at her and the two envelopes. “We need to take those in for analysis.”
“Go for it. I already know what’s in them.”
“What about the letters inside?”
“Poison versus poisonous words.” She shrugged. “The same damn thing to me.”
She grabbed two plastic bags, stuffed each poisoned envelope into its own, wrapped a twist tie on the top, and handed them to the men. “Do tell the lab to be careful.” She pulled off her gloves, dumped them in the garbage can and walked back to the coffeepot. She stared for a long moment, contemplating cutting back on her coffee drinking. She snorted. “Too bad.” She poured another cupful.
By now Steve was opening letters and reading them. The silence grew heavy as the men realized the enormity of their job.
“If you want to know if anybody hated me, read these. There’s enough hate here for the entire world.” She delivered the coffee to the men, brought out some cream and sugar, and put it on the table beside them. Then she stepped back. She didn’t want to deal with the letters but neither did she feel comfortable walking away, leaving them in her kitchen all alone.
She stared aimlessly at her backyard. She opened the door and stepped outside in the fresh air. Anything to help her think of something else.
She heard the front door close and a vehicle start up. Likely Steve getting lunch—hopefully enough for her too.
With her coffee, she stood on the deck and took several deep cleansing breaths. How did she find somebody who hated her? She knew what the worst-case scenario was—wait until they acted again. But this guy was leaving a pathway full of dead bodies. She didn’t want him to kill anyone else. She took the steps to the rear patio and wandered the gardens. She hadn’t taken any time with them in a long while, although she had paid a maintenance company to care for the place while she was gone.
Sipping her coffee, she continued, studying the plants, happy to see everything looked to be growing nicely despite her absence.
A huge six-foot-tall fence went all the way around her property. Hers was a large lot with the house in the center. All the other residences in the district were similar. Her backyard had no access except on the side of the house. This had always been one of her places to gain solace from the craziness in the world around her.
As she slowly walked back to the house, she glanced up to find London standing in the doorway, watching her. She stiffened and walked closer. “Did you find anything?”
“I found out a lot about humanity I’d like to forget.” His voice was dark, deep. Concerned. “The mail is nasty.”
“I remember.” She snorted. “I tried hard to forget these disgusting pieces of humanity.”
He shoved his hands into his jean pockets and said, “Did you keep any?”
“I told you how I gave them to the cops.”
He nodded. “All of them?”
She frowned. Then shrugged. “I don’t know if the last ones went or not. At that point, I was ready to just leave. They are probably still in the front closet.”
He nodded and turned away as if to check, but she called out, “Did you get through all the mail yet?”
He shook his head. “We’ll be on it all day.”
She heard the doorbell just then.
London checked his watch. “I’ll get the door. Probably Steve. Only ten minutes round trip.” London returned to the kitchen door and said, “Come on in, it’s Steve.”
She slowly made her way inside to see two large pizzas on the counter. With a plate each guy had scrounged up from her cupboards, they returned to the table, opening mail and eating pizza. She went to the cupboard, got a third plate, took a slice of pizza and headed for the front closet.
As she opened the door, she found the box she’d packed away. She brought it out, and, using her foot, gently kicked it toward the kitchen. The men looked up as she arrived, still eating her pizza and nudging the box forward. London looked at it and then at her.
She said, “This is what I packed away before I left.”
He nodded. “We’ll make sure we get through that one too then.”
She stared at it and said, “I’ll go through it first. It would’ve been from six months ago. If I needed to see anything, it should be in this one.”
She pulled over a kitchen chair, put down her pizza plate, donned yet another pair of gloves and then proceeded to open the box. Sure enough it was stuffed full of mail. Anything of interest she stacked on another empty chair. By the time she got to the bottom, two letters were of interest. One had her aunt’s return address in Maine. She opened the letter and pulled it out, then winced. With a heavy sigh, she set it off to one side.
“That didn’t make you happy.” London stated.
“From my aunt, telling me how I’ve destroyed the family name, should be ashamed of myself, and, as far as they’re concerned, I’m dead.” She tossed the letter in his direction and said, “It’s always nice to have the support of family.”
He picked it up, glanced through it, then handed it to Steve.
She opened the second one. Its return address was the conservatory. Maybe that letter would explain why her ID card didn’t work anymore. Instead, a piece of paper was inside with newspaper words cut out and taped on top like a childish attempt to imitate a cop show. But nothing about the message was childish.
You got away easy. I’ll make sure you don’t get off again.
Silently, she handed that and the envelope to London.
He read it and then passed it to Steve while he checked the envelope. “This is from the conservatory?”
She nodded. “The envelope is part of their stationary, but not the letterhead the message was created on.”
He nodded. “And it was mailed after your court case, just before you left?”
She shrugged. “As far as I can tell, it was at the bottom of the box.”
“You weren’t tempted to open these?” Steve asked curiously.
“All I cared about was getting the hell out of the country.” She groaned. “Which is how I feel right now all over again.”
It was a grim business, opening each envelope. London and Steve made stacks of letters they would check into later. Some had full addresses and names of people with nothing to hide who were quite open to expressing their opinions. Others gave no indication of the sender. A few were handwritten, others printed, some in marker, and even one in crayon. London sorted and clipped the envelopes to the letters.
Fern busied herself with a book—or jumped on her computer at times, struggling to get through reading all the records of the various employees at the conservatory over the last few years—but kept an eye on the guys’ progress. She just wanted all that hate mail out of her house.
*
As the hours went on, the business of reading her hate mail got gloomier, nastier, and darker. It became an onerous chore to continue, seeing the words of hate on the pages.
London opened the hand-addressed envelope he was holding and pulled out the letter. His heart froze. He knew that writing. His brother might’ve made it look like someone else’s, but London had been reading it since he was a child. He read it through, wincing at the wording. Derek had called her a liar, a cheat, and a killing machine. London shook his head and set that letter to the side, then kept going.
Steve asked, “What’s with that one?”
Without a word, he handed it to his partner and said, “I want to keep that in a separate pile.”
Steve studied it, then flipped through a stack near him and pulled out two more. In a low voice, he said, “And you better keep these with it.”
With a hard glance at his partner, London grabbed the other two, reading them through and realizing they were the work of the same man. He sank back and closed his eyes for a long moment. “There’s a lot of hate here.”
“I can see why she didn’t want to go through this.”
“Why would anyone?” London motioned to the table completely heaped with letters. “Why would someone think sending a letter like this would help?”
“That I can help with,” Fern said quietly. “They want a target to direct their own anger, anguish, and pain at. It makes them feel good to know it’s not them being slowly dissected by the world.” She got up, refilled her cup with coffee and walked away.
He watched her enter the nearby room, pick up a book from the shelf and sit down. He glanced at Steve and said, “We still have hours here.”
“Then we better pick up the pace and get through this faster.”
And that’s what they did. In an efficient move, they opened the letters, read the contents without hesitation or a second read out of disbelief, segregated them into piles and kept on going. By the time they came to the last one, London had seven letters in his brother’s handwriting. He unclipped them, took a photo of each, then clipped them together again. “Keep these with all the rest.”
Steve looked at him. “You sure?”
“I’m sure. I think enough damage has been done by my family already. Let’s not go hiding evidence.”
Steve nodded. They stacked as many of the letters as they could in the box and several others Fern had found. It was dark outside. London checked his watch.
“Are you going to catch up with Derek?”
“I’ll try. I just don’t know what I’ll find.”
“I expect him to run away,” Steve said quietly. “Your brother hasn’t got very much sense of responsibility left in his body.”
“Makes you wonder if he ever did.” London nodded in the general direction of his brother’s hate letters and said, “I should’ve expected this, but was still blindsided.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. We can never know anyone 100 percent.”
“I thought I knew him though.”
“You do, but something is eating away at him. Something major. I don’t know if it’s mental, physical, or emotional, but your brother is on a downward slide.”
“I had hoped he wouldn’t hit bottom and would wise up again.” He motioned at the letters. “I just can’t imagine.”
He walked to the doorway of the adjoining room where Fern sat under a lamp, reading a book. It was a huge tome, not light reading at all. “What are you reading?”
“Preparations for Medicinal Herbs from the 1800s,” she said without looking up.
He wasn’t sure what to say to that. “We’ve gone through the letters. We’ll take them if that’s all right with you.”
She snorted, nodding at the kitchen sink. “The mailbag has to go back to the post office. Please do not leave anything behind. I don’t want any more of that garbage here.”
He and Steve took another hour to cleanup, pack everything in boxes, and then load up the SUV. As the two FBI agents walked out her front door, they said good-bye, but she didn’t even raise her head. London wanted to apologize, but he wasn’t sure what he could say. Just as he was about to close the front door, her phone rang.
“Hello,” he heard her answer. “What?”
He stepped back inside, looking at her.
She turned to stare at him, shock in her eyes. “What do you mean the conservatory has been broken into? And why are you calling me?”
He listened to her say a few more things, and then she hung up. “Why did they call you?”
“Because I’m still on the stupid staff list. Although my passcode didn’t work in the offices earlier.” She grabbed her purse and keys. “Can you call the cops for me? I don’t really feel like going in there alone right now.”
He shook his head. “I’ll take you.”
She snorted. “You mean, come with me? You’re with him. You don’t have your own wheel, and I’m heading straight there.”
Steve was busy loading the last of the letters into the SUV. London walked outside and explained what had happened. Fern headed to her car.
Steve turned to Fern and said, “We’ll all go. This could be related to Reginald. We’ll call the cops as well.”
She nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”
London turned to Steve. “I’ll go with her.”
Steve nodded. “Hurry up. This doesn’t feel very good.”
London said in a low voice, “Nothing has since she returned.”
“That’s a guilty conscience speaking.” Steve got into the SUV and backed out of the driveway.
London got into the passenger side of Fern’s BMW, wondering at Steve’s words. Was that why this was all twisting up his insides? A guilty conscience? He certainly felt like he’d not done right by her; at the same time he wasn’t sure what else he could’ve done.
“You don’t have to come with me, you know.”
“I’m coming.” London buckled up as if to emphasize his words.
Fern turned on the engine and reversed the car from the garage.
“Any idea what’s going on?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. Neither do I know if this is related to the murders. But the only way to have this come to a head is to have the killer make another move. We don’t know who he is, or anything about him. So, until he does something else, we’re stuck waiting.”
“But we do know something about him. He tracked your movements. He knew where you went, what you did, and who you did it with. He’s very close to you.”
“The only person close to me back then was you. So, unless you’re the asshole who did this to me, you need to look elsewhere.”
There wasn’t a whole lot he could say to that.
*
His life was in limbo. He had to move carefully. Lay out the tests in a way he could control the outcome and see the results. There was big money involved. As well as his reputation.
It wasn’t so easy to do though when no one else was watching, and he couldn’t afford to let anyone understand.
But he needed answers. He’d gone down this path a long time ago, although to no usable end. He wasn’t prepared to go there again unless this was truly viable.
Which meant he needed proof.
And that was something he would have to get himself.
He didn’t trust anyone else.
Not now. Too much was riding on the results.