“And did she tell you that she thought she’d been poisoned then?”
“Not then.” He frowned, looking at Doreen. “I didn’t even think to mention it either.”
“Did you suggest that she go get help?”
“I did,” he replied, happy that he’d thought of that. “And she said that it should be fine, that she just needed a good night’s sleep.”
“I think we all have said something like that to somebody to push off their concerns at the time,” she noted. “And you know what? In some cases that is exactly what is needed.”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “So I didn’t really think anything more of it.”
“No, of course not.” She pondered what he’d shared. “And she didn’t say anything about vomiting? She didn’t say anything about a smell or her senses being off or anything like that?”
He shook his head. And then he stopped. “There was one thing she said that made me wonder at the time because it was such a funny thing, but it wasn’t then in our last phone conversation. It was a couple months earlier.”
“What was that?” Doreen asked.
“She said that she used to love almonds and that now she hated them. Even the smell of them.”
“Did she say why?”
“She said something about how she kept smelling almonds all the time, and it, … it had turned her off. Although she did admit that she watched too much tv and it likely was nothing.”
“So do you think she would have eaten anything that smelled of almonds?”
“I don’t know. They were a favorite of hers,” he stated. “I used to get her almond cookies, and, even though they had a lot of fake almond flavorings in them, she said it didn’t matter. She loved it all but once she started telling everyone that she was being poisoned she stopped eating anything almond.”
“Right,” Doreen noted quietly. “Of course, it could be a case of allergies that build up in time. Or just her sense of smell not working as well. However”—Doreen paused—“it does go along with the idea that maybe she was poisoned.”
“And how do you figure that?” he asked in astonishment.
She gave him a wry smile. “Because some poisons can smell like bitter almonds. Cyanide for one.”
He sank back with a look of horror on his face. “I don’t want to hear that. I really don’t want to hear that.”
“Good. I agree.” She stood, handed him a note with her phone number on it, and added, “If you think of anything else—no matter how slightly connected—let me know, will you?”
“Only if you do the same for me,” he stated, taking the note with shaking hands. “She didn’t deserve that.”
“We don’t know for sure that that’s what happened,” she clarified, “but, no, if that is what happened, she definitely didn’t deserve to have her life cut short. She was just a lonely older woman, looking to find somebody as a companion.”
He nodded. “And I’m just a lonely old man who’s a fool,” he snapped bitterly. “I should have given her a chance to explain.”
“And why didn’t you?” she asked curiously. It always amazed her just how much human nature kicked in and how hard it was for people to find the Reverse gear.
“I felt humiliated,” he explained quietly. “Everybody had always talked about me having this way with women all my life.” He shrugged. “I never really saw it the way other people did. I was just the guy who had lots of women friends around, but they weren’t the one woman I wanted, and that became a bit of a problem, even at Rosemoor.”
“In what way?”
“Well, because I really cared about Chrissy, and some of the other women weren’t terribly nice about it. They were really nice at the beginning, and then, you know, it’s almost like, over time, they showed their true colors, as jealousy set in.”
She pulled out her notepad and asked, “Do you remember anybody who was particularly difficult about it?”
He stared. “They wouldn’t have hurt her.”
“Why not?” she asked. “You think just because they’re in an old folks’ home that they don’t think about murder? Do you have any idea how many murderous people are in retirement homes?”
He swallowed hard, shook his head. “No, I really don’t want to know either.”
She gave him a knowing smile. “In that case, I’ll save you the statistics. But the fact of the matter is, just because people are older doesn’t mean that they don’t have the same instincts that they may have had when they were younger. In a way they’re even a little freer to do things—if they can physically do what they’re considering—because they don’t care about the consequences anymore. So who were all the women in your life that you ignored because you were with Chrissy? And when Chrissy was gone, who was the first person to step up and say something to you?”
“That would be Laura,” he replied instantly.
Her head came up, and she looked at him. “Laura Hillman?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“And what did she say?”
“Just that she wasn’t surprised.”
“In what way? That Chrissy died?”
He nodded. “I didn’t say anything about it. I was there that morning. I went immediately over to her place.”
“And please tell me that you weren’t trying to take anything away from her room or do anything like that.”
He shook his head. “No, I wasn’t.” He sighed. “I just … it was such a shock that I wanted to be closer to her. I did see a bunch of people on that day, and I hadn’t moved out of Rosemoor at the time but was in a hotel short term. So I certainly saw everybody, and their reactions were mixed. Some people, like your nan, were quite bereaved, and others were almost happy. I couldn’t understand the happy part. Some of them were just smug, said it served her right, that she shouldn’t have been carrying on as she was. I thought they meant carrying on with whatever male she’d chosen to replace me,” he explained quietly, “but I never thought to ask.”
“Any idea who it was who said that?”
He frowned, then shook his head. “At the moment, no, but it might come to me later.”
Doreen nodded. “Anything that comes to your mind about that in particular would be good. And did anybody there hate Chrissy?”
“Several of the women did. You have to understand Chrissy was one of those beautiful china dolls. And, even as she got older, she became more graceful, more fairy-like almost,” he said, with a smile. “Whereas some of them got harder, uglier, haggard, for lack of a better word.”
She just stared, contemplating that.
He shrugged. “You know how some women age beautifully and how some women don’t? Chrissy aged beautifully,” he noted quietly. “It was a joy to be around her. She got softer and more fun. Her laughter was very delicate.” He gave a long sigh. “I really hope she wasn’t murdered, and please, I really don’t want it to be because of anything I did or didn’t do.”
“I hope not too,” she replied, “but I’m still in the stages of sorting it out.”