My name is Elisha Crow and I hate my job.
I'm waiting in my office, a sealed envelope before me on the mahogany desk.
I glance at the potted plant, plastic since the real ones keep dying on me. Then at my Harvard's law degree nailed to the wall.
Geralda Heather, nee Connors, died last week, alone in her villa. Her husband left her with twelve million bucks, which she held very close, and a vast hatred towards humankind, which she spread passionately. She died with locked doors and closed windows; dogs and gardener outside on the lawn. No signs of a struggle. She had a weak heart.
I adjust my special glasses and examine my guests.
Sprawled on the sofa as if it belonged to her alone, Brigitta Connors scowls at me. She disapproves of any skin color but her own, and I'm black, wearing a suit that she decided I've stolen. She's the victim's sister, but they weren't on speaking terms. She has the only spare keys to the villa and an alibi.
Sitting rigidly on the small chair near the window, once-violin-prodigy Pearl Heather wilts under my scrutiny. She ran away from home in her teens. She's bald, wrestling with one of the bad cancers. Lost her flat and savings to the medical bills. She's the victim's estranged daughter. She has no friends, no prospects, a pair of lovely eyes and a motive.
Shuffling his feet and glancing at the armchair wondering if it's all right to sit down is John Cotter, the gardener. Employed by the Heathers for fifty years, and they weren't kind people. He's the key witness and a stubborn one, insisting nobody came to visit on that fateful day.
My cell phone vibrates and I glance at the screen. Finally!
Aconite. How did you know, you old fraud.
It's Francine. So bright, so full of life. I wish she'd let me date her, but she's too smart for my cheap lies.
I type: 'I had a hunch, Fran.'
Bull. And I'm Lieutenant Brown to you. Where are they now?
'They're all here. I'm about to start.'
We'll be there in thirty minutes. None of your theatrics, you read me?
'Can't promise that.'
I'm warning you, Crow!
I put down the phone. Sighing, I take off my special glasses, clean them with a handkerchief and leave them on the desk.
I blink as my vision clears. I see Brigitta, looking bored and haughty. Pearl, gazing dreamily at the sky outside. John, who settled for balancing uncomfortably on the armrest.
And the pale specter of Geralda Connors, my client, staring at her killer. She's livid.
I hate my job. I wish it was a job I could quit. You can stop an investigation; you can exit a tribunal. But anywhere I run, I'll still be a psychic. And the dead can tell.
"Ladies and gentleman; thank you for coming," I begin. "Before I read the will, there's a story you need to hear."
Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash
“Mr John Cotter.”
“Yessir”... his southern drawl mingles with the smoke in the air from Brigitta’s cheroot which dangles lazily from its holder. This blue haze seems to hollow out the room in a soundless moment as a purple flower shades into the distance, dispersing into the mahogany wall-panel, purple to brown. Fading motes of life spark a supernova in the eyes of Geralda, mirroring lavender with the flowers expiration. John bobs his head playing nervously with the rim of his hat clutched at his waste.
"I know who murdered Geralda."
Brigitta lets out a theatrical gasp as I look from her to Pearl who's watery eyes well up in sudden tears and then back to John Cotter.
"Well, I don't know what to say Mr Crow." The gardener leans forward suddenly fierce, all pretense of nerves gone. His eyes blaze under bushy eyebrows. "I hope you can prove any accusations Mr Crow. I mean real facts, not this hokum you peddle to the police department. These ladies have been through enough already."
I crack my knuckles as I settle back in my chair to begin.
"Yes, I have facts Mr Cotter. The autopsy lab reports have just been delivered with the cause of death..."
I pause as I eye them all one by one.
"Death by poison, Aconite poisoning to be exact. A poison... extracted from Aconitum napellus, commonly known as monkshood. A flowering plant native to western and central Europe, but in this case a plant that was also native to the garden of... Mrs Geralda Connors. There was only one person who had access to those flowers along with the means to extract and distill the poison."
Even the smoke hangs still in the air now, heavy and bloated with expectation.
"I think this is pretty much cut and dry Mr Cotter."
He slumps back into the armchair, uncaring if it is his place anymore. His face falls heavy with long years of always coming last, heavy like the smoke's expectation, heavy with the thought of being shafted by capricious fate, again.
"Ms Heather. Isn't it true that your partner, John Davis works at a Medicax medical testing facility? That you have been lovers for eight years now?"
She stares at me disbelieving. "Well yes, both of those things are true but I fail to see what..."
“Let me interrupt you Ms Heather. I also know someone has added you as primary beneficiary to Geralda Connors estate and fortune in her will. Also, I have discovered from records at Medicax that her private care giver was recently changed to a Mr Davis. A registered specialist for alzheimers, dementia and other related illnesses. She was being treated with an experimental medicine administered by injection and the person in charge of mixing and recording data for said treatment was none other than Mr Davis.”
The shade of Geralda Connors' eyes burst blue fire at her murderer as her thoughts scream out for only me to hear. I trusted you. I made you my favorite, the only one I loved.
Speckled sunlight dances across purple flowers engorged in summers fading paradise. The breeze blows across my neck cooling the sweat in an ecstasy of fluttering goosebumps.
The shade of Geralda Connor's eyes follow me as I snip the bushes around the flower bed. Her thoughts echo quietly, muffled by my psychic guards. I trusted you. I made you my executor, I made you contingent beneficiary Crow.
I look away from her snarling eyes and stare at the mansion on the hill, all twenty three rooms of it.
Life is good.
The end.
. Thanks for reading 🙂
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