Too Many Murders(69)
“Peter Norton, the banker who drank strychnine in his orange juice. An agonizing death.”
“So’s cyanide,” Silvestri pointed out.
“Yes, but cyanide is quick. As soon as enough of the blood’s hemoglobin is stripped of its oxygen, death ensues. Whereas, John, strychnine takes twenty, thirty minutes, depending on the dose. Norton got a huge dose, but drank only half of it. He was a dead man, but not for some time. Vomiting, purging, strong convulsions—I don’t know how much consciousness remains, but his wife and two little kids witnessed it. That’s disgusting.”
“Are you implying that the killer wanted that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I am,” Carmine said, sounding surprised.
“If choosing a method that tortured Norton’s wife and kids was a part of the crime, it opens up new territory, Carmine,” the Commissioner said thoughtfully. “Maybe we should be looking harder at the victims’ families.”
“Every stone will be turned over again,” Carmine promised.
Mrs. Barbara Norton had had more than a week to recover from her screaming hysterics, though Carmine suspected her doctor had her on some pretty powerful tranquilizers. Her eyes were vacant, and she moved as if pushing her way through a sea of molasses.
However, she spoke logically. “It’s some nutter he refused a loan to,” she said, giving him a cup of coffee. “You have no idea, Captain! People seem to expect a bank to lend them money without any collateral at all! Most people eventually give up, but the nutters never do. I can remember at least half a dozen crazies who filled our mailbox with dog do, put caustic soda in our pool, even wee’d in our milk! Peter reported all of them to the North Holloman police, so look there for the names.”
She was fairly plump, Carmine noted, but her rotundity had a certain seductiveness for some men, and she had a pretty face—dimples, rosy cheeks, flawless skin. When her children came in, he stifled another sigh at this second sight of them: this was a fat family, the genes predisposed to obesity. Peter Norton, he remembered from the autopsy, had been very overweight in the manner of one always so: fat arms and legs, puffy hands and feet, the adiposity packed on from shoulders to hips rather than just around his middle. According to police notes taken in the neighborhood, Mrs. Norton had tried to limit the family’s food intake, but her husband would have none of it. He was always taking the kids to Friendly’s for parfaits and shakes.
“Were your friends your husband’s friends as well, Mrs. Norton?” Carmine asked.
“Oh, definitely. We did everything together. Peter liked me to have the same friends.”
“What kind of things did you do?”
“We went bowling on Tuesday nights. Thursday nights were canasta at someone’s home. Saturday nights we went out to dinner and took in a movie or a play.”
“Did you use a babysitter, ma’am?”
“Yes, always the same girl, Imelda Gonzalez. Peter picked her up and drove her home.”
“You never went out on your own?”
“Oh, no!”
“Who are your friends?”
“Grace and Chuck Simmons, Hetty and Hank Sugarman, Mary and Ernie Tripodi. Chuck’s with the Holloman National, Hank’s an accountant with a tax practice, and Ernie owns a bed and bath store. None of us girls work.”
Middle management types, thought Carmine, sipping coffee. It was flavored with cardamom, a pet hate. In his opinion coffee was coffee, never to be adulterated with alien tastes.
“Did you ever go anyplace else, Mrs. Norton?”
Her bright curls bounced in time to her nods, robotic. “Oh, sure! Charity functions, mostly, but they aren’t regular. Cornucopia functions Peter and I went to on our own—the Fourth National is owned by Cornucopia. Otherwise the eight of us went together.” Her face fell, her chin wobbled. “Of course from now on I can’t go to anything much. Our friends are real kind, but I’m a drag without Peter. He was the joker, full of tricks!”
“Things will sort themselves out, Mrs. Norton,” Carmine comforted. “You’ll make plenty of new friends.”
Especially, he thought privately, with the size of Peter Norton’s pension and insurance payouts. Beneath the dominated housewife lurked someone determined to save herself. Maybe she’d go on a luxury cruise looking for someone she could dominate? Were it not for that inescapable date, April third, he might have suspected her of putting paid to domination by a person few seemed to like. Despite the horror of his death, a certain kind of poisoner would have relished witnessing his suffering. But Mrs. Norton had not relished it. She had gone into hysterics so strong that the neighbors had heard and come running. By the time that he, Carmine, had arrived, the children were emerging from their shock, whereas Mrs. Norton had needed two medics, her doctor, and a shot of something so potent she had slept for hours.