Death on Shady Bridge Read online

  She made no eye contact and said no more as we went to a bench across from the Historic Haines Tavern. A quartet of older men divided between two benches on the far side of the fountain, argued with gusto. Which would further mask our words from stray passersby.

  When Millie sat, I saw she was choked up.

  “I just can’t let it go. Everybody says I should. Should accept not knowing. Should just forget about it. But I can’t.”

  “Ruby doesn’t agree.”

  She blinked and produced a wavery smile. “No, she doesn’t.”

  I wanted to ask about Clara, but on the off chance she was among those who’d recommended accepting not knowing — which didn’t sound the least like her — I didn’t want to risk tipping Millie over the edge into tears.

  “A friend — a dear friend — died three years ago. Portia Hart. Portia Nesper was her married name.”

  Even if Ruby hadn’t fingered the husband as their main suspect, the way Millie said married name would have alerted me.

  “I introduced them.”

  “Not like a fix-up or anything,” she added quickly. “Just an instant of good manners. Not thinking anything would come of it. Never, ever thought that. I ran into her in Shep’s Market and we were talking, and then he came by and said hello and I said hello. He and his family had lived across the street from my husband and me. Not a good neighbor. At all. But, still, I didn’t want to be rude, even though he had been and more. But I don’t want to get into that now. You should look into this without my baggage. Anyway, when he sort of paused there in Shep’s Market, looking at Portia, I felt like I was obligated…”

  She turned an oval jade ring on her right hand.

  “I’ve thought about that moment so many times. If I hadn’t introduced them, would everything be different?”

  “Tell me about her death.” Somehow that seemed the easier aspect to approach than her apparent guilt.

  She drew in a deep breath, then sighed it out through her nose.

  “She was found in the master bathroom by her husband, Alex Nesper. Dead. The official word — as official as we ever got — was it might have been an accident, but was believed to be suicide.”

  “Why would she have considered suicide?”

  “She wouldn’t,” she said fiercely, then relented. “The reason other people thought it was possible was she’d been feeling poorly for a long time. She felt better for a while, but not long before she died, she’d started feeling bad again and some — those who didn’t know her — said she couldn’t bear feeling bad again.”

  “What would have made the authorities think accident?”

  “Because there was drug paraphernalia there — the rumors were that she overdosed at the start. Then it all faded away.”

  “Did she use drugs a lot?”

  “Not a lot. Not at all. The one who did was Zander Nesper, Alex’s son. Portia’s stepson.”

  “He lived in the house at the time?”

  “No, but he was in and out a lot. In and out at Dorothea’s, too, until she put her foot down. Because he also was in and out of trouble a lot.”

  Interesting that with the stepson an obvious focus for suspicion, especially considering the drug paraphernalia angle, Ruby had focused on the husband, Alex.

  “Do you agree with Ruby about Alex Nesper?”

  “I don’t know. I just know Portia would not have committed suicide.”

  That fierce, short burst was followed by another deep sigh. I waited.

  “No, I don’t know. Not for absolutely sure. Can anybody be certain?” Some of the fierceness returned. “I am certain her death was not investigated deeply enough to answer any questions at all.”

  She probably didn’t realize it, but that attitude was more convincing to me than swearing up, down, and sideways that Portia Nesper couldn’t possibly have committed suicide.

  “Okay, tell me what Clara will already know about Portia — her life and her death. Because, you know, Clara’s going to want to hear a lot more. This way we won’t cover the same ground twice.”

  Her mouth jerked, as if she’d meant to smile but couldn’t pull it off.

  “Clara knows Portia and I grew up on the same street. I babysat for her for years. But when we got older, the age gap closed. You know?”

  I nodded.

  “When she was in college and I was just out, we became friends — on top of the bond of knowing each other as kids. She got real sick her senior year. An incredibly high fever. They never knew what it was from and she didn’t completely recover. She was still laid real low when I happened to introduce her and Alex, never thinking…”

  I let her thoughts run on silent without prodding her. At the end, she shook her head, then brought her focus back to me, and picked up as if she’d never stopped.

  “He was twenty years older than her, at least, with a grown son hanging around and a daughter who’d left young. A year or so earlier he’d divorced his wife — strong-armed her out of the marriage from what I hear. Though, that’s gossip, not something I know for a fact.”

  I liked her for making the distinction.

  “What I do know for a fact is that living across the street from him, I saw how he treated his wife and his daughter, while acting like his son was the crown prince to some kingdom that would put Camelot to shame.”

  A frown drew her neat, dark brows together.

  “Those years across the street seemed like decades. Every soul on the block thanked heaven the day Alex Nesper left. And he was still working for their landscape and deck company, and not gambling then. Still, we thanked heaven and celebrated we’d seen the back of him, with him moving to Shady Bridge after his grandmother died and his parents moved into the big house.”

  Big house? I didn’t get the question out before she spoke again.

  “Only I hadn’t seen the back of him, because of that day in Shep’s Market. I had no idea he called Portia afterward. Or she started seeing him — if you can call it that. They were married before I even really knew anything about it.”

  “Did you and Portia stay in contact right after she married?”

  “Not as much. You’ve got to understand. There were days she could hardly get out of bed. Seeing people wore her out even on her best days. He sure didn’t help her keep up with her old friends, even her family. He refused to go with her places and he complained if she went alone.

  “When her parents retired to Arkansas, she and Alex didn’t even go to their going-away party. Guess you’d call her estranged from them.”

  “But then she started feeling better?”

  “Yes.” That held caution and reserve.

  To ask or not to ask.

  Ruby’s voice whispered in my ear. No more waiting.

  “Do you know why?”

  She streamed out a breath. “Are you familiar with hypothyroidism?”

  I shook my head.

  “Your thyroid doesn’t produce enough—” She shrugged. “—whatever it is the thyroid needs to produce for us to function right. Not enough leaves people exhausted. They can’t get out of bed, gain weight. It’s like everything slows down. Way, way down for some.

  “I always thought that fever messed up her thyroid… But that’s just me thinking. Whatever caused it, she got on medication and it helped so much. For a while.”

  “She was on medication, but relapsed?”

  “Yes.”

  There was more to it, but this time I backed away. Clara might already know. Even if she didn’t, she likely could get past Millie’s reluctance better than I could.

  “How long from the time she relapsed until she died?”

  “It’s hard to be precise, because I could see she wasn’t doing as well, but she denied it for a while.”

  “Days? We—”

  “No, no. Not days.”

  “—eks? Months?”

  “From the time when she stopped being like her old self that second time to when she died, at least two, three months.”
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  “Were you in touch with Portia during that period?”

  She shook her head hard. I still saw tears in her eyes. “As she started to slide back, I tried. I called. Sent emails. Mailed notes. And… I didn’t try hard enough.”

  “She didn’t contact you?”

  She jerked her head. “Didn’t hear a word. Not until they said on the news … Portia Nesper dead. For a second I hoped there was another one. The same name, but not… her. Then they said, Haines Tavern.”

  “I’m so sorry for the loss of your friend, Millie.”

  She nodded, head down.

  “That’s when you heard they were talking about suicide?”

  “Not then. Only much later. We hardly knew anything at the start, even her family. They’d call me, hoping I knew more, but I never did. Alex kept everyone away. I don’t know if he even had a funeral. We were all told everything was for family only and that meant only the Nespers. He had her cremated even before her parents could get back from a cruise, even though they got on a plane as fast as they could.”

  Her voice shook. Hard to tell if it was from sorrow or anger.

  “A little later, giving people a chance to get here, we had a memorial for her, a chance to celebrate her life and console each other. He didn’t even come. Didn’t even bother to attend his wife’s memorial.”

  “What about the investigation, Millie?” I wanted the information. Also wanted to redirect her.

  “What I know came later. Bits and pieces. Picked up here and there.”

  As her voice and tone went vague, she looked at me from the corner of her eyes.

  Ah.

  She was remembering I was a relative stranger.

  “We can cover more of that when Clara comes back.”

  She stood. “That’s a good idea. I better get going now. Uh, thank you, Sheila.”

  “We’ll talk more later, Millie.”

  “Yes. Okay. Bye.”

  Gracie tipped her head back to look at me as Millie walked away.

  “Yes, there goes a troubled lady, Gracie.”

  What she’d said — and hadn’t said — had left a lot of questions.

  But the biggest one on my mind right now was how Clara would react to this, especially her friend confiding in me, even if it took a hard shove from Ruby.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I returned home intending to find out whatever I could.

  But first things first.

  Starting with an enthusiastic greeting from LuLu, then suspicious sniffing, assessing where we’d been and how much fun we’d had without her. I gave LuLu treats. Then gave Gracie treats, because I couldn’t take her aggrieved astonishment at being left out. Though I slipped in a couple extra for LuLu to compensate for Ruby’s largesse.

  It’s a delicate balancing act.

  I took the dogs with me to the back yard. Them to have a thorough sniff around, interspersed with breakneck canine tag, me to sit in the spot on the back lawn the house’s wi-fi — mostly — reached.

  I’d have preferred the screened-in porch, but breakneck canine tag didn’t work well there.

  Brushing a fallen leaf off the chaise before I sat with ice water in one hand and laptop in the other, I looked up at the trees. In New York, their leaves might be turning from green to other colors. So far, all I’d noticed here was they didn’t look as rich as previous months, with shadings of yellow and tan to the green.

  Couldn’t blame them, the temperatures were still summer-hot and we’d had a dry spell. I felt rather dried out and dusty myself.

  The wi-fi held out, but it didn’t do me a whole lot of good.

  I found a short obituary for Portia Nesper, saying she died “unexpectedly” at home in late January.

  The only thing it added to what Millie told me was the husband’s middle initial was G. and his children from his first marriage were named Gloria and Zander.

  By checking the Nesper street address on Shady Bridge, I found a couple lines about police and EMTs responding to a call there for a death. It ended with “Investigation is ongoing.”

  Not a word about a drug overdose, though they weren’t shy about the phrase in other articles.

  I did find obituaries for Alex’s paternal line.

  Alex’s grandfather died two decades ago. His grandmother seven years ago. Then his father six years ago.

  As for Alex, what came up were the obligatory address listings, along with those ubiquitous offers to share all sorts of records about him … for a fee.

  Great-Aunt Kit, who included mysteries among the many books she’d written, had trained me those were useless, since most of the records they sold were public.

  Kit’s experience as a career genre author persuaded her the publishing industry would not treat Abandon All as it deserved if she were presented as author. Instead, she paid me to be its public face, so the book world could drool over a “fresh new face and fresh new voice.”

  Initially, I thought she was being cynical.

  Nope.

  As if to prove her point about the online paid searches, I easily found enough on Zander Nesper from non-paid sources to trace his run-ins with law enforcement from a string of misdemeanors, up to when he was sentenced to prison.

  He’d been driving under the influence — three times the legal limit — at forty miles over the speed limit, ran a red light, and rammed another car. A nine-year-old in that car died and others were injured.

  He was sentenced almost a year after Portia died.

  A stepson who was trouble or troubled, or both. Possibly his drugs, his drug paraphernalia found with her dead body.

  Yet no apparent interest from the authorities?

  Impulsively, I called my great aunt.

  “I can tell Clara’s away,” she said after hellos. “Third phone call in four days.”

  “Can’t I want to chat with my much-loved great aunt? After all, we lived together for a decade. It’s natural to miss talking with you.”

  “Very sweet.” Her tone did not match the words. “How often are you calling your mother and father? You lived with them longer than you did with me.”

  “If you don’t want to talk or this isn’t a good time…”

  “I’d have ended the call. But I’m going into deadline mode, so don’t expect me to keep picking up. Despite all you did for me.”

  “I did for you? You do know anyone—”

  Like a certain ex-police detective I knew — something I did not say.

  “—who heard about … you know … the book and stuff would think I took horrible advantage of you. Stealing your book. And even if I could show you set it up, they’d still say I wrested away glory that was rightfully yours and claimed it all for myself.”

  “Nonsense. If anything, I took advantage of you. Kept you at my beck and call, doing my dirty work—”

  “You do know most people wouldn’t consider going to the Oscars dirty work, don’t you?”

  She made a shuddering sound. “Dirty work,” she repeated with emphasis. “And kept you from building your own life.”

  “I could have said no and I didn’t do so badly out of it.”

  “No, you didn’t. Knowing you’re set for life financially mostly wipes out my feeling bad right away.”

  “Beyond the money, I was thinking of the time I spent with you and all the things you taught me, Kit.”

  “Hah. Given a choice between that and the money, take the money, toots.” So speaketh my sweet, sentimental, great-aunt. “Just don’t go thinking you can fool me. Or try to fool yourself. Waste of time. Now, what’s up? And don’t think I missed that you didn’t answer about calling your parents.”

  Actually, I had called them. The one day I hadn’t called Kit.

  Maybe, in addition to the writing woes, I was a little lonely. With Clara gone and Teague occupied with subbing.

  He hadn’t expected to sub much this early in the academic year, when the regular teachers are still fresh from summer, but he was picked to replace
one who suffered multiple injuries in a car accident and needed time to heal.

  This past week and weekend, he’d devoted all available time to teaching or familiarizing himself with the injured teacher’s lesson plans.

  With Clara gone and Teague occupied, some might think I should have had plenty of time to devote to my attempt at writing my own novel. Some would be wrong.

  With LuLu here, it was play time for the dogs, with brief respites for eating and exhausted coma naps. A vase, a potted plant, and a framed photo on the wall that I still don’t know how they’d reached, had bitten the dust so far.

  That’s despite taking them to the dog park daily. I also picked up Teague’s black lab mix, Murphy. Otherwise he’d be alone all school day, which hardly seemed fair with Gracie and LuLu cavorting their way through the hours. Clara gave me Teague’s apartment key before leaving for Chicago precisely for these Murphy rescues.

  I seldom have the heart to take him right back to Teague’s empty apartment, so it’s been all three dogs for most of these days.

  I’m getting a sense of what the mothers of triplets might go through. Though with fewer diapers and more fur.

  Had I jumped at Millie’s story because of that? Or, maybe I should say had I let Ruby push me into listening to Millie’s story?

  “What makes you think anything’s up, Kit? As you said, third call in four days. All mundane—”

  “Different tone to your hello today. What’s up?”

  No point arguing or dissembling. I told her about Millie’s tale.

  “Interesting. You do know some of the medical literature links hypothyroidism and depression.”

  No, I hadn’t. I’d be doing more research. For now, I grunted.

  “Certainly there’s commonality in easy-to-spot symptoms. Lack of energy, weight gain, fatigue. Plus, those symptoms often go hand-in-hand with withdrawal from society.”

  “Are you saying what they treated as hypothyroidism might have been depression? Or what they took for depression might have been worsening hypothyroidism?”

  She clicked her tongue at me. “I’m not saying either one. I am pointing out overlapping symptoms. Many other things have those symptoms as well. That’s an area for you to research. You’ll certainly want to know what caused her death, no matter whether it ends up being suicide or any other manner of death.”