Split (Chapter-8)

At the kitchen table, Angelica opened a fresh package of crickets. She had to buy them at the pet store now that it was too cold to collect them herself. Dropping the live insects one by one into the terrarium, she watched her two American toads snatch them up with their long, sticky tongues. She had named them Mushroom and Meatball for her two favorite pizza toppings. This reminded her of Ian.

She and Ian had shared slices of pizza on the front porch of a local funeral home, on top of Clausland Mountain, and on a park bench in Greenwich Village after grilling a potential perp. Angelica smiled sadly, remembering how close she'd felt to him. After these past four months together, she wondered now if it was all over. Would he choose his wife over her?

At the sound of the front door opening, the dogs leaped to their feet in a scramble and commenced the usual raucous chorus. Harriet helped Erica through the doorway.

“You’re home!” Angelica ran to meet her sister. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like shit.” Erica gingerly removed her coat.

“Can I make you some tea? A snack? Pumpkin scone and a cup of chai?” Angelica offered.

A wan smile emerged on Erica’s face. “Maybe I should go into the hospital more often.”

Angelica hugged her. “You looked so pale this morning. I was really worried.”

“I was lucky to get out of there with any blood left.” Erica headed into the living room. “Those nurses are real-life vampires.”

“Let’s get you settled on the couch, babe. The doctor said you need lots of rest.” Harriet wrapped Erica in a crocheted afghan while Angelica went to fetch the tea and scones.

The doorbell clanged. The dogs repeated their prior performance with renewed enthusiasm. Harriet went to get it.

“Hey, Ian.” She let him in. “We just got home ourselves.”

“I hope this isn’t a bad time. I wanted to check on Erica.” He unbuttoned his coat but neglected to remove it.

Angelica stepped through the doorway with her tray and froze. “What are you doing here?”

Ian had the decency to look embarrassed. “I wanted to see how Erica was feeling, but maybe this isn’t the right time…”

Angelica dropped the tray on the coffee table with a clatter, spun around, and headed back into the kitchen.

Ian tentatively took a seat across from Erica. “Is there anything I can do?”

She shrugged her bony shoulders. “I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do at this point. I just need to heal.”

The word “heal” reminded Ian. He removed the flyer from his coat pocket and smoothed it out. “There’s a new yoga studio above the bike shop. I met the teacher this morning. Her name’s Jewel Ariel. Maybe this would help?” He passed the flyer to her.

Erica looked over the class offerings. “Healing from Loss. Wow. Did you know they had a class specifically for this?”

“I didn’t look at the schedule that carefully,” he admitted. "But the general theme seemed to be healing."

“Thanks, Ian. It was nice of you to think of me.” Her smile was weary.

“I better let you rest.” He rose. “Maybe I’ll come by again tomorrow.”

“If you’re ending things with her, you should give her some time. Alone time,” Erica clarified quietly. “Because she’s hurting right now.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. He never meant to hurt anyone. That wasn’t part of the plan. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember if he had had a plan in the first place.

Back at the station, Ian stopped by Evelyn’s desk to check on the intern’s progress. “How’s it going?”

Without looking up, she handed him a sheet of paper with a list of vehicles, including makes, models, and years built.

“Holy shit, there must be close to fifty entries on this list! Are you telling me those dimensions I gave you don’t narrow down the field more than this?” He found himself yelling. It wasn’t her fault, but venting his anger felt pretty damn good.

She looked up at him. Ian could tell it took every ounce of effort for Evelyn not to roll her eyes. He had made it clear he did not appreciate her blatant disrespect, so instead, he now received complete silence and a blank stare. Behind her closed mouth, he knew she was thinking rude thoughts.

“Forget it,” he muttered as he walked toward his office. “Thank you very fucking much.”

“Who the hell you cursing out now?”

Shit. It was Chief White. She was sitting in his office, behind his desk, for some unknown reason.

“I thought if I spent my afternoon in here, I might eventually run into you.” She bared her teeth at him in what was definitely not a warm greeting.

“Hey, Chief.” He shrugged off his coat and sank into the folding metal chair in front of his desk.

“Hey, your own self. What’s this I hear about a dead lawyer?” She x-rayed him with her glare.

“Beth Strauss. May have been poisoned. Maybe accidentally. Who knows?” He leaned back and almost tipped his flimsy chair over.

“Two dead women in two days. You got anything to connect them? Or is this shit random?” The chief only used foul language when absolutely necessary. Like whenever she opened her mouth.

“So far, all I know is they both had a sweater from Ecuador.”

She gaped at him for several seconds. “That is some of the weakest damn shit I ever heard. I hope to God you’re kidding me. Cause if you’re not, you need to get up off that skinny ass and do some real detective work.”

Ian sighed. It came out as more of a groan.

The chief pushed herself up and sashayed out of his office, shaking her head as well as her hips. Dressing him down was probably the highlight of her day. He took no comfort in providing that pleasure.

Pulling his notepad out of his pocket, Ian stuck his feet up on the edge of his desk and reviewed the notes he’d taken during the morning interviews. Then, glancing at the sheet Evelyn had produced, he decided to give the intern another opportunity to make herself useful. He wrote out a list of every person he had come across so far, in relation to either of his suspicious deaths. This included Eli and Naomi Greenberg, Marjory Barstow, Jewel Ariel, Lou Farina, Neil Lowenstein, Cornelius Nash, Cheryl Hunter, Sandy Walters, the real estate agents, and the list of students from the Sunday night yoga class.

Dropping his feet onto the floor with a loud thwack, he strode back to Evelyn’s cubicle. “Got another assignment for you. I need the make and model of every vehicle registered to the names on this list. And for the last five, I also need phone numbers and addresses.”

She grunted her assent.

Apparently, his relationships with all the women in his life were going down the toilet. In fact, it seemed like Janice was the only one who didn’t currently hate his guts. Or at least want to punch his lights out.

Back in his office, in his own moderately comfortable chair, he dialed the number for the ME. When Dr. Yeager came on the line, Ian inquired into the latest discoveries in the autopsy lab.

“Our victim from last night was poisoned. The cause of death was cardiac arrest. The lab technician tested the tea. Someone mixed yew leaves in there, along with rosemary. The two look very similar.”

“Yew? Does that grow around here?” Ian had never heard of yew poisoning.

“Yes, yew is commonly planted around foundations. It can be trimmed as a hedge or allowed to grow tall, like a tree. It’s an evergreen with plump, red berries. Quite decorative. And quite deadly.”

“Good to know. Any chance it could have been accidental?”

“Difficult to say. If someone were to create an herbal tea blend, I would think they’d thoroughly research the bushes they were picking from. An herbalist certainly would never make such a mistake.”

“Any fingerprints on the baggie?”

“Only the victim’s. I’ll run the tox screens just to confirm it was the yew leaves that poisoned her. Nothing back yet on the tests we ran on Gail Hunter, but I’ll let you know when those results come in.”

“Thanks, Paul. Have all your relatives vacated yet?”

“Yessiree. I can read in peace once again.”

Ian smiled into the phone. “Small mercies.”

Paul chuckled. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Now that he knew the source of the poison, the next task was to figure out who had access to yew shrubs. Were they everywhere? And if this wasn’t accidental, who would have known enough to hide the yew’s evergreen needles in an herbal mixture featuring rosemary?

The only person he knew who brewed her own teas was Angelica. And she wasn’t speaking to him at the moment. He pondered whether or not he could—or should—put their relationship status aside in order to interview her for his case. Recalling their most recent confrontation, he decided against that plan of action.

Instead, he crossed his arms over his desk to form a pillow and rested his head. He remembered doing exactly this at Upper Nyack Elementary School on the days when his class had indoor recess. They’d play a game called Seven Up, where seven students were selected by the teacher to stand at the front of the room. While the rest of the kids closed their eyes and raised a single thumb like a flag sticking up from their fists, the chosen seven would sneak around and each push down one person’s thumb. Students with a thumb depressed had to guess the identity of the perpetrator. Ian had always cheated during the game, peeking out from under his folded arms, as he suspected most children had.

An hour later, something woke him. It was Evelyn tapping her foot as she waited impatiently.

He tried to speak but his throat had shriveled up and died during his nap.

“It’s five o’clock and I’m going home. I thought you might like to know what I found if you’re not too busy?” She kept a straight face but Ian could tell how much she wanted to smirk at him.

“Let me have it.” It was a line from Laugh In, a television show his father had loved to watch back in the seventies. The line always preceded a pie in the face. No smile from Evelyn. She didn’t get it.

“I have your list from the Department of Motor Vehicles. I cross-referenced it with my first list and marked the people whose cars fit the dimensions you gave me. I also added the addresses and phone numbers for the entire list, not just the last five names. And while I was at it, I thought it might be helpful to run a criminal background check. You have one name on the list who has been convicted of a crime.”

Ian sat up straight. “Who?”

“Lou Farina. Domestic violence. Apparently, he put his ex-wife in the hospital before the divorce. Did three months.” She was proud of herself, Ian could tell.

“That’s really good work, Evelyn. I like your initiative. Almost makes up for the attitude.” He grinned at her.

A hint of a smile crossed her features before she tossed her notes onto his desk.

Lou Farina. An ex-con. His jumpiness made a bit more sense now. The guy clearly had a temper. And quite possibly a drinking problem. He had freely admitted to spending his Sunday night barhopping. Was a man who drank and beat his wife more likely to run over a stranger with his Trans-Am? And was Gail Hunter really a stranger to him?

Ian ran a finger down the list Evelyn had just produced. The Trans-Am did not have the correct dimensions to have injured Gail Hunter. Huh. Maybe the guy used a different car?

The suspects whose vehicles matched the given dimensions were Eli and Naomi Greenberg, Marjory Barstow, Kyle Lydecker, Trixie Nash, Clara Deforest, Neil Lowenstein, and Jewel Ariel. Almost every single name except Lou Farina. That figured.

True to his word, Cornelius Nash did not have any vehicle registered in his name. Neither did Jean-Paul LaRue nor Laureen Tallman. The Haitian baker lived and worked in downtown Nyack, so this made sense. Ian checked Laureen Tallman’s address and learned she lived in Upper Nyack. Slightly less convenient for someone with no wheels.

Examining the list more closely, he saw that the vehicle dimensions fit most standard sedans, minivans, and wagons. So, practically every car on the road. It was only the compacts and sports cars that would sit too low to the ground. The Trans-Am could have taken out Gail Hunter’s kneecaps but would have left her pelvis unharmed. However, Lou Farina could have borrowed a car.

If Ian hurried, he could catch Farina at Thunder Wheels before the shop closed for the night. Armed with a little more ammunition, maybe he could wrestle something out of the guy. A full confession would be great.