Alex Harris 00 - Poisoned

“It’s just beautiful. My father built it as his retirement home and my parents spent the last years of their lives living in it. It’s big. Bigger than this house. I used to go up there a lot, but well, I’m getting older. Bradley and Kendra go a lot. Especially since he started working on the family history.
    “You see, the land belongs to all of us, but the house and its surrounding acreage are mine. But that Mr. Smit wants the whole thing or no deal. I can understand why. My house and its land are the best. The other land was mined at one time for ore and it’s somewhat wild. My personal acreage has always been maintained and is quite lovely, though that shouldn’t make any difference if he’s planning on developing it and tearing the whole thing down.” She spat these last words out.
    “I don’t think my sisters ever forgave my father for leaving it to me. Maybe this is just their way of getting back at me, but my father knew I appreciated it for what it was. All May and June could see were dollar signs every time they went up there.”
    She refilled her teacup along with mine before continuing. “I planned to give it to Bradley and Kendra as a wedding present. I think the place meant a lot to them since Bradley started working on the history. As it turns out, Kendra’s family ties go back to ours. Her great, great, great, great grandfather along with Bradley’s are the two that started everything. Of course, I knew most of our family story before Bradley got started, though not about Kendra. And he so enjoyed working on it. Not much there really, just a couple of French immigrants starting a business and investing wisely.”
    I thought that was probably the understatement of the century given the surroundings in which I now sat.
    “Mrs. Brissart,” John said, “the others should be arriving shortly. Can you give me a bit of a background on them?”
    “Of course. First there are my two sisters. Both married and both widowed, though June and her husband had been separated for years before he died. They never bothered to divorce because June wouldn’t hear of such a thing. That would tarnish the family reputation. Family ties and reputation mean everything to June. Of course, the absence of a divorce never stopped her husband from continuing his various affairs. May fared better in her marriage. Both their husbands died of cancer, isn’t that odd?
    “Then we have May’s two sons, Steven and Larry. Larry is married to April and they have two children who go to a private school out west. Steven is divorced and has a daughter, Trish Hollander. She’s divorced as well after only a year of marriage. Larry and April are okay, though April’s a little dingy and Larry’s pretty useless. Then we have—”
    But Mrs. Brissart didn’t have a chance to continue. The doorbell rang and a few minutes later Mrs. Platz came in to announce that everyone had arrived.
    Mrs. Brissart and I spent the afternoon in the study working on funeral arrangements and the death announcements the printer delivered that afternoon. John and Detective Maroni spent the afternoon interviewing the other parties.
    Shortly after six they came into the study with some disturbing news. John took Mrs. Brissart’s small hand in his and looked into her eyes. This didn’t look good but I couldn’t figure out how it could get much worse.
    “We’ve done a preliminary interview of everyone and need to talk again with certain people. We still haven’t received the lab results, but...”
    “But what, Detective?” Mrs. Brissart asked with a trembling voice.
    “It’s our opinion that your grandson was not the intended victim. You were.”
    “Oh, dear God, oh, dear God.” Mrs. Brissart sobbed uncontrollably while I held her and John looked on helplessly. “If I had just agreed to sell that land this never would have happened! I killed him with my self-righteous principles. My dear, sweet Bradley, it’s all my fault. Which one of my precious relatives did it?” she demanded looking up at John and pleading for an answer.
    “We don’t know that yet. But it seems everyone is harboring animosity towards you because of the land. So far no one has said anything that would lead us to believe Bradley was the intended victim. We will find out who is responsible, I promise you.”
    “Then it was one of them?” Mrs. Brissart asked, as tears streaked her face.
    “I’m afraid we don’t know that yet, either,” John admitted. “But