The Night Killer

home, where she would have to live on a ward with a bunch of other people, male and female, all of them strangers.”
    “I imagine that was frightening for her,” said Diane.
    “It frightened her. She bought into Tammy’s wellness program,” said Ben. “Tammy fixed her food and brought it to her room. When Mrs. Fuller complained about the small amounts, Tammy sweetly showed her a study that said people with low calorie intake live longer and are generally healthier.”
    “Tammy had an answer for everything,” said Frank. “She even gave Mrs. Fuller old Shirley Temple movies and vintage comedies to watch. I imagine she got those really cheap DVDs you can get at discount stores. Tammy told Mrs. Fuller that laughter is good medicine, and in places like shelters, people don’t get enough laughter.”
    Diane shook her head. “She had a little health plan all worked out. What did Mrs. Fuller think of it?” she asked.
    “She actually liked it. She said Tammy was nice to her,” said Frank.
    “Are we talking about the same Tammy Taylor I met at Slick’s?” said Diane. “The backwoods bitch from hell?”
    “Apparently she has many different sides to her personality,” said Frank. He grinned. “Tammy occasionally brought Mrs. Fuller a puppy to pet from Slick’s dog pens. She told her it would lower her blood pressure to play with a puppy.”
    “Mrs. Fuller said the barking dogs made her nervous, and the puppies were a little too frisky,” said Ben. “But she went along.”
    “It sounds to me like Tammy developed her health plan from women’s magazines she got at the supermarket checkout,” said Diane.
    “I think she did,” said Frank. “But there was enough surface credibility to convince Mrs. Fuller that Tammy knew what she was doing.”
    “What about living way up in the mountains on a dirt road?” said Diane. “Didn’t that bother her?”
    “At first, but Tammy told her to give it a chance. Before long, she’d be out helping with the chores,” said Frank.
    “Tammy could make a good argument that she meant well,” said Diane.
    “Maybe, and maybe not,” said Ben, raising a hand over his notes and pointing a finger as if at Tammy herself. “Mrs. Fuller said that at night Tammy brought her hot chocolate and it made her sleep well,” said Ben. “Tammy told her it was the milk. I’m wondering what was in the chocolate.”
    “Oh, my,” said Diane.
    “That’s not all,” said Frank. “Every morning she gave her a health drink. Mrs. Fuller said it was a fiber drink—to keep her digestion healthy. She’d had them before, but the taste was a little different from what she was used to and she felt jittery during the day. I think Tammy gave her an over-the-counter fiber drink and spiked it with an energy drink. They would have similar citrus tastes. The energy drink would act to offset the feelings of weakness that would result from the deficient calorie intake. But with Mrs. Fuller’s high blood pressure, it would be dangerous.”
    “For someone with precarious health, you don’t have to shoot them to kill them,” said Ben. “There’re a lot of things you can buy at the grocery store that’ll do the job just fine. Take a little longer, but harder to detect. It would look like natural causes.”
    “What kind of impact did it have on her health?” said Diane.
    “Not good. Like I said, we interviewed her in the hospital. Her blood pressure was through the roof and she was malnourished.”
    “Is she going to be all right?” Diane asked.
    “The doctors think so. She’s elderly and, like I said, her health is precarious. But she has genuine help now.”
    “What happened the night of the storm?” asked Diane.
    “She hadn’t drunk her cocoa,” said Ben. “She said she was feeling nauseated that day and the milk made it worse, so she was awake. She said the storm was frightening and the roof started to leak in her room. She heard the tree fall and said Slick rushed out to take a look. After that, she told us, things got hectic around there. She heard Tammy and Slick rushing around, arguing with each other. Slick issuing orders about the dogs and for Tammy to do what she could about cleaning up the tree. He said he would come back and move the big logs. Mrs. Fuller heard him say something about Tammy needing to make sure she got all the pieces. Mrs. Fuller thought that meant the tree.”
    “We guess he meant the bones,” said Frank.
    “Mrs. Fuller said she finally got to