Six Cats A Slayin'

“Besides talk to a divorce lawyer?” Milton said bitterly. “I meant it, you know, what I said to her after she attacked Gerry. She can’t go on this way. She’s got to get help, or I’m going to leave her.”

“Is she an addict?” I asked, knowing that it was a horribly intrusive question. But Milton needed a friend. Looked like I had been elected.

Milton didn’t appear offended by my question. “Yes, she is. Painkillers, mostly, but sometimes she drinks along with it. She hurt her back pretty bad doing yard work a few years ago, and ever since, she’s been taking painkillers.” His eyes met mine. “She’s not getting the pills here, Charlie. Neither Jenny nor I would let her have any. She’s not stealing them, either.”

“I’m sorry that you and Jenny are dealing with this,” I said. “Tammy has refused to get help?”

“Yes, no matter what Jenny and I do or say,” Milton said. “She’s been taking the pills so long, I think she’s terrified of trying to live without them.” He snorted derisively. “As if she has any kind of life living like this. I sure as hell don’t.”

Milton was a good man for sticking by Tammy this long, I supposed. I knew it was hard to get self-destructive people to change, and sometimes all you could do was walk away, if you wanted to preserve your own health and peace of mind. I thought Milton had reached that point, though he might not have fully realized it yet. I wished I knew what to say to him about this. Stating it outright would come across as brutal at the moment, and I hesitated to do it. I didn’t think he was wanting that kind of advice from me.

I addressed another point instead. “Are you going to tell the authorities about this?”

“It’s my duty, isn’t it?” he said. “Even if she is my wife.” He rubbed his eyes. “Maybe this is what it will take to get her to do something about those damn pills.”

I didn’t envy him the decision he had to make. I knew that he should tell Kanesha. I could do it for him, but I felt uncomfortable even at the thought. This was Milton’s battle, and I suspected he would talk, or else force Tammy into admitting it to Kanesha herself.

“It might,” I said. “There’s another point, though, that could affect all this. You weren’t there when Gerry collapsed, of course, but from the little bit I’ve been able to glean from Kanesha Berry—and my own observations—Gerry was poisoned by something that killed her almost instantly. If Tammy killed her, how did she obtain anything that lethal?”

Milton laughed suddenly, a little wildly. He sobered quickly. “From the garden shed,” he said. “When she isn’t strung out on pills, Tammy is out in the garden. That’s why she has such a dark tan. People in the neighborhood consult her a lot, because she knows so much about chemicals. She has all kinds of hazardous stuff in that shed. Including sodium cyanide.”

“Good grief, where does she get the cyanide?” I asked, remembering another situation where cyanide had come into play.

“She distills it herself,” Milton said. “You probably don’t remember this, but she has a degree in chemistry. Worked for a big company in Memphis for almost five years after we first got married.”

I didn’t think Milton needed me to tell him how bad things looked for Tammy. She went out of the house disguised, knew how to make a deadly, fast-acting poison, and had had a nasty confrontation with the dead woman. The circumstantial evidence was highly suggestive.

“You understand now why I’m so terrified,” Milton said.

“Yes,” I said, still stunned by the latest revelation. Could there be another explanation for why Tammy had disguised herself when she left the house? I thought of a sordid one, but there could be other, less sordid ones.

“Was this the first time, to your knowledge, that Tammy went out disguised like that?” I asked.

“No,” Milton replied. “I’ve caught her doing it three or four times in the past few years. I think it has something to do with her sources for the pills.”

That was the sordid explanation that had occurred to me. “Then isn’t it possible that’s what she did last night? Went out because she needed more pills?”

“I’ve thought about that myself,” Milton said, “but I know for a fact that she got a fresh supply on Saturday.” He sighed. “She thinks I don’t know where she hides them, but I do. I’ve been tempted so many times to dispose of them, but I know that wouldn’t stop it.”

In the length of the time she had been gone from home on Tuesday night, she could have driven to Holly Springs or another good-sized town not far away. If Tammy hadn’t needed pills, though, then she wouldn’t need to don her disguise in order to meet a dealer or go to another pharmacy.

Back to the scenario with Tammy as the murderer.

“Doesn’t look good, does it?” Milton said in a despairing tone.

“No, it doesn’t,” I replied. “If you told me all this because you wanted my advice—”

Milton interrupted me. “I do.”