The Killer Can Conundrum

When we moved here, I never thought I’d be investigating a murder. Moving into a new community is never easy. It’s like the first day of school or camp all over again. They don’t know you and you don’t know them.

Our merciful neighbors were our first connection, Rob and Laura. We became fast friends. Game Nights and Martini Mondays were weekly events until tragedy struck. Rob keeled over one day on the golf course. He was only 65, so tragic. But the next month provided an unexpected rollercoaster ride I would never get on again.

We all assumed Rob had a heart attack. Laura said there was history of heart disease in his family, but it was unexpected as his last heart scan was clear.

Laura was in tatters. She’d been married to Rob since high school and she was lost. He was an accountant, so he did all the bills and managed all the finances. She took care of the house and kids. I didn’t understand it, but that system worked for them for over 40 years.

Bill and I tried to piece things together for her and point her in the right direction. I helped her with the arrangements and Bill dug into the insurance and other finances. It was all very normal…until it wasn’t.

As a former newspaper reporter, I always think I have a sixth sense for a story. But this time, I didn’t see it coming. Looking back on it now, I can’t believe I didn’t see it.

Here’s how we pieced it together, one lie at a time. The accounts were the key. They were very odd. Bill said there were strange money transfers between accounts. All different amounts, different dates, no pattern, but all by ATM. That was unusual. You can do all that online now. Why go to an ATM?

And there were Zelle payments on the account. Why would someone pay by Zelle online and yet transfer money via ATM? And the Zelle payments were different amounts to different people, but it added up. They had a lot of expenses.

 Even weirder were the credit card charges. They had ten credit cards and all were maxed out. And a lot of Pay pal and Venmo transactions. We were worried for Laura as her social security alone wasn’t going to cover all these expenses.

I was afraid Rob was up to something. Maybe he was a gambler or had someone on the side. Either way, this didn’t make sense. We sat Laura down and discussed it, but she said cried and said she didn’t know anything about money. We didn’t want to upset her any more, so Bill set up a budget for her and tried to see what expenses she absolutely needed.

I didn’t want to pry, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know what Rob was up to. Reporter hat on I decided to look into his computer history. They did spend a lot and a lot of it was on Amazon.  These days, who doesn’t have a daily delivery of the smiling box, but curiosity got the best of me. I devoured his Amazon account. I looked into order history, wish lists and recent-boughts and suggestions. Amazon and other websites suggest items based on your buying patterns. And Google and most social media puts ad suggestions based on your searches. Computers are better than Sherlock Holmes when it comes to people’s browsing habits. It’s kind of scary how much they know. I saw a couple of patterns. There were a lot of ads based on homeopathic drugs, organic foods, and pipe tobacco. Rob was a pipe smoker and like to create his own signature tobacco blends. He used to joke he was the next Prince Albert. Remember that old joke…Do you have Prince Albert in a can? Better let him out? 

The history seemed normal on the surface, but combined with the credit card and bank charges, things started to come into focus.

It was hard to ask Laura about anything. She just burst into tears and cried “Oh Rob.” It was hopeless. Bill said I should just let it go, but I couldn’t.

Who were all the payments to and for what? Bill went through all her normal bills, utilities, mortgage, insurance, etc. Nothing was paid by Pay Pal, Venmo or Zelle. And worse yet, those are all blind accounts, so they’re practically untraceable. And Laura didn’t have passwords for any of the accounts. I mean really, who doesn’t know anything about their own money. That was just sad. Shouldn’t you have a “this is where to find things if I die folder?”  

I was convinced that Rob was keeping secrets. But what? I Googled every name and tried to track down every expense without much success, so I looked back to the Amazon account. A lot of the purchases were for the pipe tobacco creation. What a stupid thing to spend money on…your own blend. He seemed to be obsessed with it. He had a whole cabinet in the garage with multiple brands and different elements to add to the taste and aroma. Laura didn’t like pipe smoke unless it smell nice. There was a full spice drawer in his “tobacco lab”. Vanilla, chocolate, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg – it was like he was baking a cake, not making tobacco.

Then it hit me. I recently read a mystery book where the killer poisoned her husband by sneaking nutmeg into his marijuana mix. When smoked it can be lethal. Something didn’t smell right. And yes, it was the pipe tobacco.

I took his cans of blends and pictures of his lab and went to a tobacco store. The owner told me he never heard of putting these elements in tobacco and yes, some spices can be poisonous when smoked.

Death by tobacco can? Sounds crazy. Did he accidentally poison himself or could Laura have done him in…and why?

And if he did accidentally kill himself, could that affect her life insurance benefit?  No one suspects anything. And he was up to something, after all. I don’t NEED to say a word. Do I?

(c) Copyright Suzanne Rudd Hamilton 2021