Chapter 5 - MRS. GABLE CONFESSED TO POISONING KAYLA, BUT HER REASON MADE GUNTHER QUESTION HIS OWN MOTHER’S DEATH
Mrs. Gable did not run.
She waited in staff dining room.
Hands folded.
Coffee untouched.
Gunther entered with Kayla, Victor, and Detective Harris.
“Did you contaminate her uniforms?”
Mrs. Gable looked at Kayla.
Tears entered her eyes.
“Yes.”
Kayla stopped.
Gunther did too.
“Why?”
“I didn’t know it was arsenic.”
Gunther’s voice became cold.
“What did you think it was?”
“A sedative powder.”
Kayla stared.
“In my clothes?”
Mrs. Gable nodded.
“Caleb’s man gave me packets.”
“He said they would make you tired.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Gable cried.
“He said you had been stealing.”
Kayla laughed in disbelief.
“You believed him?”
“At first.”
“Then why not report me?”
“He told me Gunther wanted it handled quietly.”
Gunther closed eyes.
His reputation again.
Someone invoking his preferences.
“I never ordered it.”
“I know now.”
“Why continue?”
Mrs. Gable looked ashamed.
“Because Caleb knew about my daughter.”
Gunther frowned.
“What daughter?”
Mrs. Gable had never mentioned children.
“Rachel.”
“Where is she?”
“Prison.”
Silence.
Rachel Gable had been convicted eleven years earlier for financial fraud at a Woods-controlled casino.
Gunther vaguely remembered.
A junior accountant.
Embezzled $600,000.
Except Mrs. Gable said:
“She didn’t steal it.”
Victor’s face changed.
Gunther noticed.
“What?”
Victor said:
“That case involved your mother.”
Gunther’s blood cooled.
His mother, Helena Woods, died twelve years ago.
Officially heart failure after years of autoimmune disease.
She had run charitable operations and employee-relief funds.
Mrs. Gable had been her personal housekeeper.
“What did Rachel know?”
“She found money missing.”
“From where?”
“Employee medical fund.”
Again.
Same structures.
Sam’s settlement.
Old relief accounts.
Caleb’s consultants.
Patterns.
“Who took it?”
Mrs. Gable whispered:
“I never knew.”
“But Rachel copied records.”
“She went to Helena.”
“What happened?”
“Three days later, police arrested her.”
Gunther stared.
“My mother framed your daughter?”
Mrs. Gable shook head.
“I don’t know.”
Important.
Proof boundaries.
“Rachel accepted plea because prosecutor threatened ten years.”
“She served four.”
“Why stay working here?”
Mrs. Gable laughed through tears.
“Because I wanted to know.”
There.
Three decades of invisibility.
Another employee investigating the Woods family from inside.
Kayla looked at her.
“You poisoned me to protect your investigation.”
“No.”
Mrs. Gable cried harder.
“I poisoned you because I was afraid Caleb would send Rachel back to prison.”
“On what?”
“Parole violations.”
“She’s been out seven years.”
“Caleb said he had evidence she was stealing again.”
“Was she?”
“No.”
“But I believed he could manufacture it.”
Probably.
Gunther understood why.
The Woods name had made impossible things possible.
“Did Caleb give packets?”
“Through Moss.”
“Moss says you chose arsenic.”
“He is lying.”
Who?
Evidence.
Packets recovered from laundry cabinet.
Chemical analysis.
Arsenic trioxide.
Packaging fingerprints.
Mrs. Gable.
Moss.
No Caleb prints.
Could be either.
Then Detective Harris produced text messages.
Moss to Mrs. Gable:
Use one packet per uniform cycle. It’ll make her sluggish. Woods will fire her himself.
Mrs. Gable:
Will it hurt her?
Moss:
No.
There.
She asked.
He lied.
Still she used unknown substance on a coworker.
Kayla’s face was hard.
“You could have told me.”
“I know.”
“You chose your daughter over me.”
Mrs. Gable broke.
“Yes.”
Kayla nodded slowly.
Not forgiveness.
Truth.
“I understand why.”
Mrs. Gable looked hopeful.
Kayla continued:
“I still won’t tell you it’s okay.”
Hope disappeared.
Good.
Mrs. Gable was arrested for poisoning-related charges but cooperated.
No revenge.
Then Rachel Gable’s old case reopened.
Financial records connected to Helena Woods.
Gunther’s mother.
The woman he remembered as gentle.
The only person he had ever trusted completely before death.
Audit showed employee medical fund had lost millions over fourteen years.
Not Rachel’s $600k.
Much larger.
Helena knew.
Her handwritten notes:
G.W. cannot know.
Gunther Woods?
Likely.
Or someone else.
Another initials:
V.R.
Victor Romano.
Gunther looked at best friend.
Victor went pale.
“No.”
Records dated when Victor was twenty-two.
Before underboss role.
He had worked Helena’s security.
“Did you know?”
“Some.”
“How much?”
“Your mother was moving money.”
“To where?”
Victor looked toward Kayla.
“Women’s shelters.”
Gunther froze.
“What?”
Helena secretly diverted criminal profits into domestic-violence shelters, worker medical aid, relocation funds.
Why hide from Gunther’s father?
Because Arthur Woods controlled money and would stop.
Arthur.
Gunther’s father.
Dead fifteen years.
Violent.
The true architect of old empire.
Helena had stolen from him to help people escape men like him.
Rachel discovered.
Helena did not frame her intentionally?
Victor explained.
Arthur’s auditors discovered missing funds.
They blamed Rachel.
Helena planned to confess.
Then Arthur threatened Gunther.
“If Helena makes scandal, boy inherits nothing.”
Helena chose silence.
Rachel paid.
Gunther’s memory of mother shifted.
She helped victims.
And allowed innocent employee to go to prison.
Both.
“What does this have to do with her death?”
Victor hesitated.
Gunther’s attention sharpened.
“Victor.”
“Helena wasn’t sick the way you were told.”
Silence.
Kayla looked at Gunther.
His face emptied.
“What?”
“She was sick.”
“Autoimmune disease real.”
“But her final collapse…”
Victor stopped.
“What?”
“Her medication was changed.”
“By whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was twenty-three.”
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“Did you investigate?”
“Your father died before her.”
“Caleb?”
Victor’s eyes shifted.
There.
Gunther saw.
“What about Caleb?”
“Helena discovered Caleb had accessed Arthur’s old financial ledgers.”
Caleb would have been early twenties.
“She accused him of blackmailing Rachel.”
“What?”
Victor shook head.
“I heard an argument.”
“Then?”
“Two days later Helena collapsed.”
“Doctor said heart failure.”
“It may have been.”
“May?”
Victor swallowed.
“I found one pill in her bathroom that didn’t match her prescription.”
“What did you do?”
“I gave it to family physician.”
“Name.”
“Dr. Martin Keene.”
Gunther knew him.
Retired.
Living in Vermont.
“What did he say?”
“That I was mistaken.”
“Did you keep pill?”
“No.”
Of course.
Another secret.
Another uncertain death.
Gunther stared toward police window.
Caleb could be corrupt.
Could have injured Sam indirectly.
Could have targeted Kayla.
But murder of mother?
No proof.
They contacted Dr. Keene.
He answered.
When asked about Helena Woods, long silence.
Then:
“I wondered when somebody would finally ask.”
Gunther stopped breathing.
Keene admitted Helena had unusually high digoxin levels when she died.
Her medication contained digoxin for cardiac complications.
Could have accidental overdose.
Could have deliberate.
He had wanted autopsy.
Arthur already dead, but family board opposed scandal.
Who told him not to pursue?
Gunther expected Caleb.
Instead:
Victor Romano.
Silence.
Gunther turned slowly toward the man who had been beside him for fourteen years.
Victor looked destroyed.
May you like
“I can explain.”
And Gunther realized the one person he had used to judge everyone else might have been carrying the oldest secret of all.
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