They Were Very Much In Love

They Were Very Much In Love(Len Daniels) They Were Very Much In Love

It was about 9:00 pm on Sunday night, and Jim Standish was catching up on the sports scores on television. He relaxed in the recliner that his fiancee' had given him on his last birthday, dressed in the sweats that he sometimes used for pajamas, since he didn't do much jogging or exercise. His curly black hair spread out on the back of the chair and sipping a beer, he watched intently as his favorite teams were beaten again that day. Feeling confident that he could forget the happenings of the previous week, he was startled by the ringing of the telephone, and thinking it must be his carpool driver inquiring about the next morning's ride, and reminding him that it was his turn to drive.After two rings, he picked up the receiver.
"Hello," he said, "is that you, Frank?"
"No, it's inspector Calley, you remember, from last month, the Sims case."
"Oh yes," he countered. "What can I do for you?"
"I'd like to know if we could get together for a little talk, say tomorrow morning?"
"That's impossible, I have to be at work by 7:30. Is it very important"
"Yes, it's important to the investigation into the death of your fiancee', Peggy"
He could sense from the urgency in the cop's voice that he must have found something that hadn't been uncovered in the preliminary hearing with the Medical Examiner.

Peggy Sims, Gym teacher and head of the Phys Ed Department at Radcliffe High School, was found unconsious and dying in the locker room on Monday evening, three weeks ago. While taking a shower with Joyce Rawlings, one of the other teachers, she became dizzy and collapsed in the stall. The other teacher immediately grabbed her cell phone and called 911. The time wasted in the EMT's efforts to gain entrance to the school probably cost Peggy her life. All the doors had been safety-locked right after the last student left for the day.

An investigation into her demise revealed little more than the most routine events leading up to her unfortunate departure. She would be at school every day all during the week, rarely missed a day and would stay 'til at least 6:00 pm on most nights. This fact and the fact that she reserved her weekends solely to be with her fiancee', Jim Standish, were known to all of her co-workers at school. She apparently kept very little from her best friend and assistant, Miss Rawlings.

Peggy and Joyce grew up together in a small town in the midwest where sports was considered as piously as a religion. Young men and women would train to become skilled in their chosen sport, and the two girls excelled in gymnastics. Their hard training caused them to achieve a masculine look in their physical appearance. Their mental attitudes and feelings however, were truly and strongly female. It was this strength in Peggy that attracted Jim to her. He had been brought up by a domineering mother who constantly complained about all her ills and blaming them on her worsening Diabetes condition and a father that was rarely able to sit with the family at dinnertime, due to his daytime hours being spent in the local taverns. He would come home and head straight for his bedroom to sleep off the day's libation. Jim, however went on to become a leader in computer programming with a "Master in Mathmatics" degree. He had a knack for solving logical problems that could only be compared to Einstein.

Peggy and Jim met at a gymnastics meet about two years ago, when he attended it strictly on a whim while he was bored one Saturday afternoon. He approached her after the event and proceeded to explain how mathmatics played a major part in her exercises. She, not wanting to be rude about not caring but being interested in his manner, offered to take him for a cup of coffee. That was the way their relationship started.

In the ensuing months, they became quite a pair in their circle of friends. They would go to the beach with one group, to the opera with another group and even attend rock concerts with still a third group. They made sure that everyone knew their coupling was to become permanent someday. They announced their engagement with a lavish party thrown by her widowed mother at her palatial home.

Mrs. Sims became sole owner of the Sims Boatbuilding Company, when her husband of forty-two years succumbed to Diabetes and kidney failure. He was only seventy-four years old. They were married in 1952 while she attended Vassar and he was starting up his business. He was ten years her senior but the age difference had no bearing on their forward thinking. They waited several years before planning a family. It was in their fifteenth year of marriage that Peggy was born.

"How about tonight then, say around 10 o'clock?" the inspector persisted.
"Well all right then, I won't be able to linger too long, since I have to get up early in the morning. Where do ya' wanna meet?"
"Do you mind coming down here to the station?" he replied. "I have a few things to show you."
"OK then, I'll be there in about an hour," he acceded, and hung up the phone.

Jim spent the next half-hour while showering and dressing trying to relive the circumstances surrounding his fiancee's death, knowing full well that the Medical Examiner's report attributed it to natural causes. It just didn't make any sense that the police were still investigating it.
Inspector Cally met him at the front door of the police station with the greeting,
"Good evening Mister Standish, glad you could make it," and they walked into one of the vacant offices. Jim could tell from the way the inspector was acting that whatever he was about to disclose would be unsavory at best.
"Do you remember during the preliminary investigation that Miss Sims' friend, Joyce Rawlings, mentioned that Peggy had complained that afternoon about feeling 'hyped-up' all day and that her medication must not be working, allowing her blood sugar to get too high? I later found out that she had Type 2 Diabetes, which is controlled by oral medication in most cases to control blood sugar."
"Did you know that she was a diabetic? Surely, in the two years that you knew her, it must have become apparent."
Jim said, "I knew she always had pills to take before meals, but she never discussed what they were for and I never pressed her for an explanation. I figured when she wanted to tell me, she would."
The officer added, "another thing that I was made aware of by my friends at the bank was that she recently added your name to her sizeable bank account in readiness of your impending nuptials. I wondered, why with her massive assets, there wouldn't be a pre-nuptial contract protecting them. She must've really trusted you."
"We were very much in love," Jim answered.
"Another strange discovery I came across was when I asked her doctor about her condition. He informed me that dizziness is not caused by high blood sugar."
Jim shifted nervously in his chair. "Then what are you trying to tell me, inspector? That the case isn't closed?" he asked.
"Well, with these facts to ponder, the coroner and myself started digging into the basic facts surrounding the case. Like looking into the possibility that she might've been poisoned or some such thing. The post-mortem records show some strange results with commonly known toxins."He added. "They in themselves don't raise any
red flags, but together they paint a very different picture. It seems that their characteristics had been altered by some outside influence such as an exotic herb or plant, like Risin."
"Risin, what the hell is Risin?" Jim inquired, as he squirmed in his seat once more.
"It's a rare and extremely powerful poison. Once in the blood stream, it kills in a few days in 99% of the cases where it's used, but I would suspect that you already knew that, didn't you, Mr.Standish? You see, I found her glucometer and test strips along with the lancets she used in testing her blood sugar." It looks as though someone……..YOU, dipped some of those lancets in risin before she used them. We found three that hadn’t been used still in their container, and the health department ran a few tests on them. It was risin all right and were extremely deadly to anyone pricking their finger with them. I’m afraid you’re going to jail for murder, Mr. Standish.