“Don’t.”

“We have to say it.”

I looked toward the hallway.

“Those chocolates weren’t meant for us, were they?”

I said nothing.

Laura’s voice dropped.

“They were meant for you.”

I called Thomas.

Voicemail.

Again.

Voicemail.

Laura stood up.

“I think I know where he is.”

“Where?”

“Natalie’s house.”

My younger sister lived about forty minutes away.

I picked up my coat.

Laura caught my wrist.

“Don’t go alone.”

“I’m not going there to fight with him.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

I put Thomas’s birthday card into my purse.

“Ask him one question.”

“You Were Going to Get It Anyway”

Natalie opened her door only halfway.

“Dorothy, this isn’t a good time.”

I looked over her shoulder.

Thomas was standing in the hallway.

“It seems like an excellent time.”

Natalie lowered her voice.

“He’s scared.”

“Anne and Charles were poisoned.”

“I know, but—”

“Move, Natalie.”

Thomas came forward.

“I’ll talk to her.”

I pointed toward the driveway.

“Outside.”

Once we were alone, I took the birthday card from my purse.

“Did you send this?”

He looked at it.

“Yes.”

“Did you buy the chocolates?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know what was in them?”

He looked toward the house.

“Mom, you don’t understand what’s happening.”

“Then explain it.”

“I can’t.”

“Try.”

He rubbed both hands over his face.

“I owe money.”

“How much?”

“Enough.”

“To whom?”

“People.”

“What people?”

“People you don’t want to know.”

I stared at him.

“And poisoning me was your solution?”

He flinched.

“Don’t say it like that.”

“How would you like me to say it?”

He started pacing.

“I was desperate.”

“For my money.”

He stopped.

That was when I saw it.

Not guilt.

Anger.

“You have almost two hundred thousand dollars sitting in accounts doing nothing.”

“It’s my retirement money.”

“You’re sixty-nine.”

“Yes.”

“You own your house.”

“Yes.”

“Dad left you a pension.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

His mouth tightened.

“You were going to leave it to me anyway.”

I looked at him.

“When I died.”

He didn’t answer.

“Thomas.”

“Yes.”

I heard Natalie open the screen door behind us.

Thomas kept talking.

“I needed it now.”

“So I was taking too long to die?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Then say what you mean.”

He stared at me.

And then he did.

“Because you’re a burden, Mom. You always have been. And I need the money now, not twenty years from now.”

Natalie gasped.

Thomas looked toward her.

“Stay out of this.”

I didn’t raise my voice.

“Your children ate those chocolates.”

His face changed.

“I didn’t know you’d bring them over.”

“That’s your answer?”

“It was a calculated risk.”

Natalie said:

“Thomas!”

He immediately shook his head.

“No. That’s not—I said it wrong.”

“You calculated the risk of your own children eating poison?”

“I thought she’d eat them at home!”

Everything went quiet.

Even Thomas seemed to hear what he had just admitted.

I folded the birthday card once.

“Mom.”

I put it into my purse.

“Mom, wait.”

I walked toward my car.

He followed.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“We need to fix this.”

I opened the car door.

“There is no ‘we’ in this anymore.”

---

My Signature Was Already on the Paper

Stanley arrived at my house the next morning carrying a folder.

He placed one document in front of me.

“Do you remember signing this?”

I did.

Thomas had brought several papers to my house eighteen months earlier.

I had been making coffee.

“It’s just estate planning, Mom. Sign where I marked.”

I had signed.

Stanley pointed to the section I had never bothered to read carefully.

Thomas had been given broad financial authority if I became unable to manage things myself.

He was also the primary beneficiary of almost everything I owned.

“Can he touch my money now?”

“Not without certain conditions. But I don’t like how much access you’ve positioned him to have.”

“Remove him.”

Stanley looked at me.

“From the authority?”

“From everything.”

“Dorothy, that’s a significant decision.”

I pushed the document back across the table.

“So was putting arsenic in my birthday present.”

Stanley didn’t ask again.

By the end of that day, Thomas’s authority was revoked.

My accounts were protected.

My estate plan was being rewritten.

Laura came over that evening carrying a cardboard file box.

She set it on my kitchen island.

“I found these behind the tax records in Thomas’s office.”

Inside were loan statements.

Credit card advances.

Past-due notices.

Cash withdrawals.

Several gambling-related transactions.

I picked up one statement.

“How long has this been happening?”

“At least two years.”

“You didn’t know?”

Laura laughed bitterly.

“Apparently I didn’t know my husband at all.”

Then she looked at me.

“He told me you hated me.”

I lowered the paper.

“What?”

“He said you thought I married him for money.”

“Laura, I never said that.”

“He said you didn’t want me calling you directly.”

I stared at her.

“He told me you wanted me to stop coming over because I interfered with your family.”

Laura went still.

“He told you that?”

“For years.”

She pulled out a chair and sat.

Then she said:

“He kept us from comparing notes.”

That sentence stayed with me.

Because it was exactly what he had done.

The Search History

The police were already building their case, but Stanley recommended that I have someone examine the financial side.

Frank Miller was a retired detective.

He came to my house with a thin folder.

“I’m going to keep this simple.”

He placed four pages on the table.

Thomas wasn’t dealing with a few bad bets.

He was buried.

Loans.

Cash advances.

Gambling debts.

Payments made from one account to cover another.

Then Frank showed me the search history recovered during the investigation.

How long does probate take in New York?

How soon does beneficiary get inheritance money?

Arsenic poisoning symptoms.

Can arsenic poisoning look like food poisoning?

I stopped him.

“That’s enough.”

Frank closed the folder.

“There’s something else.”

He slid a receipt toward me.

Thomas had purchased the chocolates himself.