Coldwater Revenge, James Ross [books for 9th graders txt] 📗

“Oh, no!” Mary’s hands leapt to her mouth. Joe surrendered a long, reedy groan.

“You’re going to need a damned good lawyer, little brother.

“Don’t know any.”

* * *

A phone rang in a nearby patient’s room. A rasping voice audible through the wall began to recite symptoms to an unseen listener. The pulse at Tom’s neck throbbed. The smell of hospital disinfectant seeped into his nostrils. Down the hall, a sobbing child called for its mother.

“I don’t understand,” said Mary, breaking the silence. “She killed her brother?”

Tom nodded. “It looks that way. Or rather, she sped up something that was already underway. My guess is that when Joe called her about getting Billy to the hospital, she went home and found Billy near dead anyway. I think Frankie Heller was there first, and that’s why the boathouse looked a wreck and that’s how that bird got its leg whacked off. But Frankie just beat the stuffing out of Billy. He didn’t kill him.”

“Then how did he die?”

“He drowned,” Joe moaned.

“Frankie must have left in a hurry when he heard Susan come home. She knew Billy was sick, and the abrin bit says she knew what from. Father Gauss said that he’d heard Billy was trying to get Susan to sell the family estate and that he was making her life miserable because she wouldn’t agree. Billy’s Canadian pal confirmed that. My guess is Billy flaunted what he was doing for Frankie and Dr. Hassad. And that doing it right out of the boathouse under his sister’s nose was part of his campaign to get her out. The abrin must have been a recent addition, and he must have contaminated himself almost immediately.”

“What makes… you think?” Joe’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Because if he hadn’t, once Susan had found out that he’d graduated from pot to poison, she would have turned him in. Brother or no brother. She’s a scientist, not a terrorist.”

“But if he was already dying, why give him the poison from that Rosary Pea?” asked Mary.

“To speed things up. And to do it in a way consistent with accidental exposure. She must have reasoned that even if the abrin were detected, there would be evidence that Billy had quite a bit of it about and that it would be attributed to the same source. A source that certainly wasn’t going to come around and dispute the connection. It was good, quick thinking.”

“That seems to be Miss Pearce’s specialty,” Mary observed.

The brothers’ eyes stuttered past each other like wrong-way magnets.

“So why… did she need… to speed it up?” asked Joe. “If he’s… already dying?”

Tom glanced at his mother. She was staring off into the middle distance, isolated, but still listening. His answer was unsparing. “Because Super Trooper was coming to the rescue and the striptease gig might not work with Billy throwing up blood all over the place.”

“Tommy!”

“Think about it.” Tom spoke directly to his brother now. “This low life, scum-bucket had just about finished killing off his sorry self. And whatever misery he’d been heaping on Susan and whatever threat he posed to her work and reputation was within hours of coming to an end. Not to mention the bigger threat of this toxin and the people who paid Billy to mix it up in batches. But Super Trooper is on his way and there’s no time to stop him.”

Joe said nothing.

“When you called her, did you happen to say something manly, like that if she didn’t get Billy to the hospital by the time your shift was over, you’d come and drag him there yourself?”

Joe wouldn’t look at him.

“Did you?” Tom demanded.

Joe bowed his head.

“So she poisoned him?” asked Mary, wanting it spelled out plainly.

“From what the CDC doctor told me,” said Tom, “she would only have had to crush one of those beans in a cup of liquid. Maybe she crushed a handful to finish him off fast. He was at death’s door anyway, it was just a matter of hours. When it looked like the potion had worked, she must have zipped him up in that sleeping bag. Maybe he was using it as a bed cover or something and was already lying on it. It gets pretty cold at night on the water, and there was only a sheet on the bed when I went there yesterday. Then she dragged the bag with Billy in it down the steps and into the boat.”

When Tom finished speaking, the family Morgan fell into an exhausted silence. Each stared off in a different direction like strangers in a crowded elevator. Mary was the first to snap out of it. “That’s quite a story, Tommy. But isn’t it what they call circumstantial? You can’t prove any of it. Can you?”

Joe answered for his brother, his voice a feeble gasp. “I think… we’ll find pieces… of Frankie Heller… under those bird claws. I took… a lot of stuff… from Billy’s room… right after we found… his body. Maybe we’ll get… some abrin… out of a mug… or something. We’ll get more… of Billy… from the boat. It couldn’t have… been easy… dragging him… over the side… in and out. We’ll get fibers… from the bag… at least.”

Tom paced in the space between bed and door. “The first story Susan tells after she gets hit with this is going to be the best chance of getting anything near the truth. You’ve got to tell your pal Grogan to bring her in before she has a chance to polish some fairy tale.”

Joe struggled to speak. “I know I’m compromised, Tommy. But I can’t…”

“It’s not just Susan, Joe. What about Hassad and what he was up to with Billy? Who’s going to stop him before he skips town? You? Me?”

CHAPTER 26

Tom pulled up beside Susan’s dented BMW sat at the far end of the NeuroGene parking lot, and there had another of those ‘what am I doing here?’ moments, conscious that he was having a lot of them lately,