the doctor downstairs to the parlor where he would soon join them. “Put these on him.” He produced a pair of handcuffs.
Bill remained in the foyer with Scotty, who had been communicating with headquarters by telephone. He reported that the two Texas Rangers had divided up. One was getting information from the deputies who’d investigated the scene of the ambush. The other had gone to the Johnson homestead to assess the devastation there in advance of the arrival of the arson specialists.
Thatcher overheard Bill ask Scotty to locate Bernie Croft. “Don’t approach him. Don’t indicate that you’re looking for him. Just let me know where he is. Me and me only.”
“Yes, sir.” The deputy left.
When Bill entered the parlor, Driscoll said, “I hope you can trust Mrs. Amos’s friend to make her drink the water I prepared.” He’d added honey to a large pitcher of water and had left it on the bedside table.
“Even if she continues to throw up for a time, she needs the water. It will help flush the arsenic from her system naturally through urination. I’ve heard that the honey helps. Chemically, somehow. Also eggs. She should be fed eggs. The sulfur in them—”
Bill interrupted him. “You told Alice all that. I’m confident she’ll follow your instructions to the letter.”
Driscoll held up his cuffed hands. “Are these necessary?”
“They were for Thatcher when he was suspected of the crime you’ve confessed to. They stay on. You poisoned my wife.”
“Bernie brought two cases of liquor to my office and left them to be spiked with a slow-working poison, so it wouldn’t be immediately noticed. He told me those bottles were to be ‘gifts’ for members of the Johnson family. I had no way of knowing that Mrs. Amos would be allotted some, too.”
Bill had admitted to Thatcher during his tell-all on the porch that Croft was Daisy’s supplier of bootleg whiskey. That he’d given her bottles spiked with arsenic was indicative of the malice he felt toward Bill as well as Daisy for choosing Bill over him.
“Is she still in danger?” Bill was asking Driscoll. “And you had better not bullshit me.”
“The arsenic will remain in her system, but for how long depends on a number of factors. That’s why I emphasize flushing it out and neutralizing it as much as possible.”
“Could she still die of it?”
“It can cause complications, organ damage and so forth, that can eventually prove fatal. It’s a toxin, after all. Had I not acted so swiftly and given her the lavage, more than likely she would have succumbed.”
To Thatcher, Driscoll was a complete mystery. He was like the doctor in that book. Two men with opposing personalities living inside the same body. One minute Driscoll was bawling like a child caught misbehaving, the next he was calm, detached, even defiant.
Within an hour the man had admitted to poisoning bottles of liquor he knew would be consumed by human beings and had confessed to murdering his wife and unborn baby. Thatcher rather agreed with Patsy Kemp, who’d said with bitterness: They ought to hang the bastard twice.
Bill was now asking Driscoll why he had agreed to poison the bourbon.
“Bernie had me over a barrel.” He poured out the whole sordid story about Croft trying to recruit him to transport booze on his rural route. “I was offended. I’m a physician, not a bootlegger.”
He looked down at his linked fingers. “But then, the night Mila… When I needed Bernie to see me through that crisis, he did so. He and that old bag at Lefty’s quickly set up the incident with the prostitute so I would have a cover story for leaving the house at that hour of the night.”
“Did Gert know about Mila?” Bill asked.
“I don’t believe so. Bernie said she was a whore at heart and wouldn’t ask questions so long as she was paid.” He sighed deeply. “Anyway, after that night, he owned me body and soul. I was subjected to a lot of humiliation from him. I tolerated it, believing I had no other choice. But when I found out that he’d told Norma about Pointer’s Gap, I—”
“What?” Bill held up his hand. “Run that past us again.”
“Norma knew about Mila. She sprang it on me the afternoon she brought Arthur to the house. I was floored, flabbergasted. Bernie was the only person who could have told her, except for the men who actually buried the body, and they were all Mexicans who didn’t even speak English.