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“Okay, so you had a gun. Bought it? Stole it? What?”
“Bought. But not from a store. There’s no documentation on the gun. You need to understand that I went there to reason with her. And I wanted to prove to myself that I could talk to her without being overwhelmed by her. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. Proving your courage, and that you’ve learned something. What did you talk about?”
Carl shrugged. “You know.”
“Tell me.”
“I wanted her to stop threatening Gil and Tayla. And I wanted to know the truth about what had happened to Sylvia.”
“What was her reply?”
“Janet wouldn’t answer me. She said she was going to call the sheriff. Her phone was on the dining table but I grabbed it before she did. She screamed at me.”
“Did anyone hear her?”
“No,” he said. “She’d run the Nesbitts off and the other neighbors were at work. She had a kettle on the stove and it went off. I decided to make her a cup of tea as a peace offering.”
“Wait a minute,” Sara said. “You’re there with a gun and she just sat there? Why didn’t she run away?”
“I was carrying a canvas bag, like the ones you take to the grocery. I had a newspaper in there and some bananas.”
“And a .38.”
“Yes, but she didn’t know that.”
“Did you leave the bag behind when you went to the kitchen?”
“It was on the end of the dining table.”
“Near Janet?”
Carl paused. “Janet was never afraid of me. And the truth was that she was enjoying seeing me beg.”
“So you left the gun behind and went to the kitchen to make tea. Then what?”
“I saw the canister that said Sylvia’s Tea. I honestly thought it was a nice gesture, a calming one, to serve her the tea Sylvia used to like. I didn’t know it was full of poison.”
“Wasn’t it kind of dumb for her to leave it there? In full sight?”
“Who was going to think that a little old woman was a multiple murderer? Who would have kept a tin of poisonous tea on the counter at the ready?”
“I see your point. I guess she drank the tea.”
“She did. Downed a whole cupful. But then she saw the canister I’d used and started shouting that I’d tried to kill her. I had no idea what she was talking about. She put her fingers down her throat and vomited into the sink. When she came up, she grabbed a knife off the rack, then threw the canister at me. That’s when I realized it must contain the poison she’d used on Sylvia. I backed out of the kitchen.
“She followed me. She was raging, saying she was going to take Quinn away from Gil, going to expose Charlene. She was going to destroy everyone who’d ever done anything bad to her.”
Carl stopped for a moment. “I honestly don’t know what happened next. She lunged, and I swerved. I was trying to knock the knife out of her hand, but she leaped toward me. I grabbed her wrist and twisted. The knife went into her body and she fell back onto a dining chair.”
Sara was listening with wide eyes. “And then?”
“It didn’t kill her. She told me—ordered me—to give back her phone so she could call an ambulance. ‘I’m going to make all of you sorry for this,’ she said.”
Carl paused. “She grabbed the canvas bag. Maybe she thought I’d put her phone in it. The gun fell out and she reached for it. I was several feet away but I got to it before she did. I was shaking all over and pointing the gun at her. I just thought of Gil and Quinn and Tayla and Charlene and all the people she was going to destroy. And the many, many others whose lives she’d destroyed.”
Carl ran his hand over his face. “It was horrible! She had vomit on her face and her clothes and a big knife was sticking out of her chest. But she just sneered at me in contempt. I’d seen that look so many times before. Then she said, ‘You always were a coward.’”
