More Poison in Your Coffee?

Chapter 19

                Since I hadn’t had time to paint over the message on my bedroom wall, I made a detour to Henry’s house. I wasn’t up to pretending like I wasn’t frazzled by the threat and Henry’s big modern bachelor pad was empty and safe. I’d borrowed the spare key he kept hidden in the rock garden and let myself in, going straight for the guest bedroom.

                Too tired to worry about disrobing, I kicked off my shoes and crawled under the massive covers of the king size bed. But sleep was hardly in the cards for me tonight as all I could think about was Jackson, the case, and how much Detective Juarez pissed me off.

                In fact I tossed and turned for about an hour and a half before I sat up and decided to give up the charade of getting anything even resembling a good night’s sleep. I climbed out and paced the room, something was bothering me but I couldn’t figure out what.

                All my thoughts from the week were a disorganized jumbled mess in my brain. Add on to that, that I was so exhausted and preoccupied and it’s no wonder I was having trouble keeping everything straight. So I decided to sit down and get my rampant thoughts out on paper.

                I wasn’t sure what I’d find or why I wanted to do so in the first place since I knew that Karalyn was obviously the only one who could be the murderer, but something wasn’t adding up. So I started rifling through the night stand.

                There was the usual shit in there, Kleenex, lotion, a flashlight, and a spare pair of glasses. Upon inspection I realized the glasses belonged to Harley, Henry’s other brother who when in town would occasionally sleep over. Looking back at the bed that Harley must have slept in made me feel all warm and fuzzy, but now wasn’t the time to think about my deep childhood infatuation for my best friend’s brother.

                After another second I finally found the spiral notebook and pen I was looking for. Being the writer, Henry has this fascinating and peculiar habit of leaving pencil and paper in the most interesting places. He says it’s so he can write down an idea if he has one. Naturally this means there is a pad and pen in every drawer in his house. And in other stranger places such as above the visor on the driver’s side of his car or even odder in a large flower pot he keeps on the deck outside.

                I sat down at the metal desk that was against the wall, clicked on the small lamp, and began writing. This was how the cops did it, right:

                              Evelyn Harper’s Super Special Awesome List of Murder Suspects:

1)      Karalyn Conway: A rather large upper class housewife who was probably very unsatisfied in her marriage to Bo. Moved large sum of his money to overseas account then perhaps killed him as revenge. Had access to poison and kitchen where Bo’s cake slice was. Makes the most sense as she had most to gain. However, it most certainly could not have been her leaving ominous notes as suspicious masked person was noticeably skinny. Could she have hired someone?

2)      Allison Fleming: Overworked femme fatal with a massive grudge against Bo for reneging on promise to promote her after having relations with a man old enough to be her father. Perhaps even grandfather.  Crime of revenge? Had ample time to sneak into kitchen and poison cake when it was assumed she had left. Bo threatened to make sure she never got work. Did she kill him to ensure job security? That’s not an unheard of stretch in this kind of economy.

3)      Earl Owens: Bo’s underappreciated and big headed publicist. Originally thought to have no motive, but recently learned he was having affair with Bo’s wife. Perhaps killed in a crime of passion? But poison usage is usually less spontaneous and more calculated. Plus he’d already gotten paid so why bother with killing him at all? Why didn’t Karalyn just leave Bo for Earl?