Chapter 5 - Beneath the Workbench
Charlie scratched the same patch of concrete three times.
Margaret whispered, “Robert used to joke that cat could hear ants underground.”
I moved the rubber mat.
A square seam appeared in the concrete.
Not concrete.
A metal access panel painted gray.
Margaret stared.
She had never seen it.
The panel lifted with a screwdriver.
Underneath was a shallow cavity.
Inside: another envelope.
And a bottle of pills.
The prescription label read:
ROBERT BENNETT.
Margaret took it.
“These aren’t his heart pills.”
The name was unfamiliar to me.
The envelope held a lab report.
Blood toxicology.
Dated two weeks before Robert died.
Margaret read the first page.
“What is this?”
Robert had apparently ordered his own test.
There was a handwritten note:
I have not been taking this.
Margaret sat down hard.
I called the police.
This time she did not stop me.
Detective Paul Harris arrived with two officers.
He listened to the recording.
Collected the pill bottle.
Sealed the lab report.
Then he asked:
“Who prepared Mr. Bennett’s medications?”
Margaret looked sick.
“I did.”
“Anyone else have access?”
She did not answer.
Harris waited.
Finally:
“Laura.”
The detective asked when Laura last visited before Robert’s death.
“Every day that week.”
“Why?”
“She was helping us pack.”
“Was she present the day he died?”
Margaret’s face drained.
“Yes.”
According to Margaret, Laura came over that afternoon.
Robert went outside around five.
Margaret was upstairs.
Then Laura shouted.
They found him collapsed beside the garage.
No autopsy.
Robert was seventy-nine with a history of heart disease.
No one questioned it.
Detective Harris did now.
“Mrs. Bennett, we may need to review the death certificate and medical records.”
Margaret nodded.
Then Charlie made a strange sound.
He walked to the garage trash can.
Jumped onto the lid.
And stared at Laura’s old coffee cup sitting on a shelf above it.
May you like
Margaret whispered:
“That cup was here the day Robert died.”
