“I’m Doreen,” she stated. “Nan from Rosemoor is my grandmother.”
His astonishment went to acknowledgment and then immediately to suspicion. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to ask you a few questions about Chrissy.”
His face fell. “Chrissy’s dead. And there’s nothing to ask questions about.”
“Well, you’re not dead,” she noted, as she waited for an invitation to join him. Without one, she sat in the nearby chair, her animals right beside her. “And, if you know anything about what happened to her, I would very much like to know.”
He stared at her. “Surely you won’t go on about her being poisoned to death.”
“I have no idea what I’ll go on about,” she replied carefully, “because I’m still not too sure I’ve gotten to the bottom of all this.”
He frowned. “Well, if you talked to anybody at Rosemoor, I’m sure you got a snootful of information, most of it wrong.”
“Maybe,” she agreed. “I heard that the two of you were an item.”
He nodded. “Until she stepped out on me.”
He used a phrase that, in any other circumstances, would have made Doreen smile.
“I never expected it of her. Broke my heart.”
“And are you sure that that’s what happened?”
“She didn’t deny it,” he replied. And then he stopped and frowned. “Well, she did deny it but not convincingly.”
“And maybe she didn’t think that was an issue and that you should have just believed her,” she suggested.
“Maybe. But—” Then he stopped again. “I’m sure you really don’t care,” he muttered, “but she was very special. And it hurt me that she would do something like that.”
“Well, the rumors that I have heard about it,” she added, “are that she didn’t step out on you and that it was just gossipmongering from some very jealous women.”
He stared at her for a moment. “I had heard that at the time too, … but I didn’t believe it.”
She nodded slowly. “You didn’t at the time, but how about now?”
He winced. “It did occur to me afterward, after she was … that maybe she hadn’t really done what I thought she’d done. The trouble was, at that point in time, it was already way too late to change my mind or to ask forgiveness or to turn back the clock. She was already gone.”
“Right. And do you think she died of natural causes?”
He stared at her, swallowed carefully, but leaned forward, then slowly shook his head. “No,” he said quietly, “I don’t.”
Chapter 14
Doreen leaned back in her seat and stared at Xavier. “If you don’t think she died of natural causes, what exactly do you think happened?”
“I have no idea.”
But she was having none of that. “No, I don’t believe you. You must believe something.”
He shrugged, stared off in the distance, and then glanced around to make sure nobody was close.
“I know she was always telling anybody who would listen that somebody was poisoning her, but I didn’t believe that. I didn’t think of it, anything of it, until the day before she died.”
“But did you see her then?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t see her, but I did talk to her on the phone. And she was feeling pretty rough. But she wouldn’t give specifics. She was already on a mix of medications and the doctors had been changing doses trying to get a better handle on her nosebleeds, headaches, even indigestion.”
Doreen stared at him. “Nobody has mentioned anything about that yet.”
“She was in her room, alone, and she hadn’t gone down for dinner because she wasn’t feeling well.”
“And how is it that you two were talking?”
He winced. “I wanted to see how she was doing. I just had a bad feeling.”
“And was she surprised to hear from you?”
“She was surprised. She was happy. I hate to say it, but she was almost grateful. And that just makes me feel like an even bigger loser. Normally I wouldn’t have even called her, but there was just something, you know? Like, when you get that feeling, where you need to do something? So I followed through on that nudge, and I talked to her, and it was an okay conversation, I guess. I felt fine about it, and then, the following morning, I found out she was dead.”
“And how did you find out?”
“I tried to call her again and got no answer. I tried for several hours that morning and still no answer. Finally I phoned the front desk of the home, and they told me that she’d passed away the previous night.”
“And did you say anything then about her symptoms?”
“No, of course not,” he stated. “I wasn’t even thinking straight at that time. I was too shocked. I mean, I’d actually been thinking that maybe we could try again. I hadn’t said so to her, but it occurred to me that maybe I’d been too rash—maybe I’d been too harsh. It’s just one of those regrets that I’ll have to live with now.” He glanced around, leaned forward again, and whispered, “Do you think she was murdered?”
“I don’t know,” Doreen admitted. “The other option is a little less pleasant too.”
He stared at her. “I don’t think she committed suicide,” he argued in a more robust tone.
“And why not?”
“Well, when I was talking to her, and she told me about being sick to her stomach, I think she would have confessed to me then, so she could get help or something.”
“I guess it depends on whether she thought that you were literally being nice to her and maybe there was hope for you two again.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t say anything outright like that, but, I mean, we were talking and happy and laughing,” he replied. “She didn’t sound in any way depressed or suicidal,” he stated in shock.
“Maybe after the phone call,” she suggested, eyeing him carefully, “maybe she realized what she’d lost and couldn’t live with it.”
He stared at her, and she watched the sickly gray color slide over his face.
“I’m not trying to upset you.” Mugs stepped up to Xavier, rubbing along his leg. When Xavier went to pet Mugs, Doreen wasn’t sure Xavier was even aware of the interaction. Mugs just didn’t want Xavier to be upset.
“Good thing,” he murmured. “I can’t imagine if you were.”
She sighed, wondering how anybody could gently talk to people regarding something so emotional, especially what could obviously end up being a very guilt-ridden issue. Thaddeus rubbed his head along Doreen’s cheek, probably picking up on her stress too. “I just wonder what she would have been like mentally and whether that would have had something to do with it.”
He wrapped his arms around his chest, a motion she hadn’t seen very many men do. But his hands were shaking now, as if he had really settled into the idea that maybe he’d had done something to cause her to do this. “She kept saying that her stomach was hurting and that she’d been on the toilet a lot.”