by Sue Grafton
"Tell me about Sunday dinner. Did you fix it yourself?"
"Oh dear no, I don't cook. I haven't cooked for months. Do you remember, Loosie?"
"I made us a cold plate, poached chicken breast with salad," she said. From the kitchen came the piercing shriek of the kettle. She excused herself and headed off in that direction while Dorothy took up the narrative.
"I was feeling better by then so I came out to the table just to keep them both company. He did complain some of chest pain, but I assumed it was indigestion. Louise was concerned, but I remember teasing him. I forget what I said now, but I was sure it wasn't serious. He pushed his plate back and got up. He had his hand to his chest and he was gasping for breath. He took two steps and went down. He was gone almost at once. We called the paramedics and we tried mouth-to-mouth, but it was pointless."
"Mrs. Shine, I don't know how to say this, but is there any way you might consider having the body autopsied? I know the subject is painful and you may not feel there's any necessity, but I'd feel better if we were really sure about the cause of death."
"What's the nature of your concern?"
"I'm wondering if someone, uhm, tampered with his food or medications."
Her gaze settled on my face with a look of almost luminous clarity. "You think he was murdered."
"I'd like to have it ruled out. It may be a long shot, but we'll never know otherwise. Once he goes in the ground..."
"I understand," she said. "I'd like to talk it over with Louise and perhaps Morley's brother, who's arriving tonight."
"Could I call you later this evening? I'm really sorry to have to press. I know it's distressing, but with services tomorrow, time is very short."
"Don't apologize," she said. "Of course you may call. At this point, I don't suppose an autopsy would do any harm."
"I'd like to have a conversation with the coroner's office to alert them to the situation, but I don't want to do anything without your permission."
"I have no objections."
"To what?" Louise asked as she came around the corner with a fully laden tea tray. She placed the tray on the coffee table. Dorothy filled her in, summing up the possibilities as succinctly as she'd summed up the wrongful death suit.
"Oh, let her go ahead with it," Louise said. She filled a cup and passed it over to me. "If you discuss it with Frank, you'll never hear the end of it."
Dorothy smiled. "I thought the same thing myself, but I didn't want to say so." To me she said, "Go ahead and do whatever you think best."
"Thank you."
Detective Burt Walker, of the coroner's bureau, was a man in his early forties with receding auburn hair and a close-clipped beard and mustache in a blend of red and blond. His face was round, his complexion ruddy, his coloring suggestive of Scandinavian heritage. His glasses were small and round with thin metal frames. He wasn't heavyset, but he looked like a man who was becoming more substantial as the years went on. The weight looked good on him. He wore a brown tweed jacket, beige chinos, blue shirt, a red tie with white polka dots. While I detailed the circumstances surrounding Morley's death, he leaned an elbow on his desk and variously nodded and rubbed his forehead. I verbalized my suspicions, but I couldn't tell if he was taking me seriously or simply being polite.
When I finished, he stared at me. "So what are you saying?" I shrugged, embarrassed when it came right down to articulating my hunch. "That he actually died from some kind of poisoning."
"Or maybe it was a poison that precipitated his fatal heart attack," Burt said.
"Right."
"Well. It's not inconceivable," he said slowly. "Sounds like he could have been dosed. I don't guess there's any chance he might have done it himself, despondent, depressed about something."
"Not really. His wife does have cancer, but they'd been married forty years and he knew she depended on him. He'd never abandon her. They were very devoted from what I gather. If he was poisoned, it'd almost have to be something he ingested without knowing."
"You have a theory about the chemical agent involved?"
I shook my head. "I don't know anything about that stuff. I've talked to his wife about his last couple of days and she can't pinpoint anything in particular. Nothing overt or obvious, at any rate. She said his color was bad, but I really didn't quiz her about what she meant by that."
"Couldn't have been anything corrosive or you'd know right off," he said. He sighed, shaking his head. "I don't know what to tell you. I'm not going to ask a toxicologist to run any kind of 'general unknown.' You got nothing to work with. A request like that is too broad. You look at the number and variety of drugs, pesticides, industrial products... man oh man... even the substances you handle casually at home. From what you're telling me – I mean, let's assume you're right, just for the sake of argument – the problem's compounded by the fact he was in such poor shape."
"You knew Morley?"
He laughed. "Yeah, I knew Morley. Great old guy, but he's living in the fifties when everybody thought drinking a fifth a day and smoking three packs of cigarettes was just something you did for sport. Guy like Morley whose liver or kidney functions were probably already hampered by disease will be more severely affected by any kind of toxic agent because they got no efficient way to excrete such a substance and they probably can't tolerate as much as a healthy individual. Few things we can probably eliminate right off the bat," he said. "Acids, alkalies. I take it she didn't mention any kind of smell to his breath."
"No, and she'd have noticed. They tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation at first and then figured out it was pointless."
"Takes out cyanide, paraldehyde, ether, disulfide, and nicotine sulfate. You couldn't palm those off on a person anyway."
"Arsenic?"
"Well, yeah. Symptoms you described would fit that pretty well.
Except him feeling better. I don't like that much. Too bad he never went over to ER. They'd have tagged it."
"I guess with his wife sick, he didn't want to be a bother," I said. "Everybody's had the flu. He probably thought that's all it was."
"Which it might have been," Burt said. "On the other hand, if it's something he ate and you're talking about the gastrointestinal tract as the portal of entry, then you're talking about a period of time here when you got both chemical transformation and elimination. Generally speaking, chemicals that enter a living organism are either metabolized, eliminated, or both, which means you're progressively reducing the amount of detectable poison. Digestive system goes to work. Hell, he's throwing up the evidence. If the poison kills quickly, there's almost always quantities present on autopsy. It doesn't help he's been embalmed. In a situation like that, when you've got embalming fluid injected in the circulatory system with resultant visceral profusion, toxicologist's problems are blown way bad."
"But would it still be possible to identify?"
"Probably. We'd have to analyze samples of clean embalming fluids, too, check those against whatever foreign elements and compounds are found in the viscera. I tell you what would be the biggest help if you want to get serious about this: Bring me any household products you can find on the premises. Check the garbage for suspect foods. Pill bottles, rat poison, roach powder, cleaning and disinfecting agents, garden insecticides, that kind of thing. I can have a conversation with the funeral director and see if he has anything to contribute. Those guys are pretty sharp once they know what you're after."
"So you'll do it?"
"Well, if she signs the papers, we'll give it a shot."
I could feel excitement bubble up, mixed with equal parts fear. If I was wrong, I was going to feel like a fool.
"What's the grin for?" he asked.
"I didn't think you'd take me seriously."
"I'm paid to take people seriously when it comes right down to it. Lot of times, presumption of death by poisoning only comes about because of suspicion on the part of decedent's friends and relatives. We'll bring Morley out here and take a look."
"What
about the funeral?"
"They can go ahead with the services. We'll have him brought out here after that and get right on it." He paused, giving me a speculative look. "Got a suspect in mind if it turns out you're right?"
"I literally don't have a clue," I said. "I'm still trying to figure out who killed Isabelle Barney."
"I wouldn't try too hard if I were you."
"How come?"
"That kind of curiosity might have been what killed Morley."
Chapter 16
* * *
I couldn't believe I had to go back to Morley's again, but that's where I was headed. Burt Walker had asked me to bring him any household products that were possible poison candidates. Louise was out in front, standing at the mailbox, when I pulled up. If she was surprised to see me she gave no indication. She waited patiently while I parked the car and got out. We began walking toward the house as companionable as old friends.
"Where's Dorothy?" I asked.
"She's gone to her room to rest."
"Was she upset?"
Her look was frank. "My sister is a realist. Morley's gone. If someone poisoned him, she wants to know. Of course it's upsetting. Why wouldn't it be?"
"I hated to add to her burden, but I didn't see a way around it."
"There's nothing either one of us can do about that. What brings you back?"
I told her about my conversation with the coroner. "He doesn't seem optimistic, but at least he's willing to check into it if I round up some possibilities. I'm going to need some sort of carrier for the items we find."
"How about a kitchen garbage bag? Ours are the small ones with a drawstring at the top."
"Perfect," I said.
I followed her to the kitchen and together we gathered up everything that seemed pertinent. The storage area under the sink turned out to be a rich lode of toxic substances. It was sobering to realize that the average housewife spends her days knee-deep in death. Some items I declined, like the Drano, reasoning there was no way he could have sucked down a fatal dose of hair-ball solvent without being aware of it.
Louise had a sharp eye, pointing out items I might have overlooked otherwise. Into the bag went oven cleaner, Raid, Brasso, household ammonia, denatured alcohol, and a box of ant motels. I had a brief incongruous image of Morley with his head back, slipping ant motels down his gullet like a succession of live goldfish. There were several of Morley's prescriptions lined up along the kitchen window sill and we tossed those into my trick-or-treat bag.
In the bathroom, we emptied the medicine cabinet of everything with Morley's name on it, plus a few over-the-counter medications that might be lethal in quantity. Aspirin, Unisom, Percogesic, antihistamines. None of it felt particularly ominous or threatening. We checked all the wastebaskets, but came up with nothing the slightest bit suspicious. The garage netted us a few containers, but not nearly as many as I'd anticipated. "Not many insecticides or fertilizers," I remarked idly. Louise was loading my bag with turpentine and paint thinner.
"Morley hated working in the garden. That was Dorothy's bailiwick." She stood back from the shelves, doing a slow turn as she scanned the premises. "That looks like it. Well, motor oil," she said. She turned and looked at me.
"You might as well put it in the bag," I said. "I can't believe he OD'd on Sears heavyweight, but anything's possible. What about the office? Does he have a medicine cabinet in the bathroom there?"
"I hadn't even thought about that. He sure does. Here, let me rustle up his keys while we're at it."
"Don't worry about it. I can have the woman in the beauty shop let me in from her side."
We returned to the front of the house, where I got out my car keys. "Thanks for your help, Louise."
"Let us know what they find," she said.
"It'll be a while yet. Toxicology reports sometimes take a month."
"What about the autopsy? That should tell them something."
"Nothing's going to happen till after the funeral."
"Will we see you at the service?"
"As far as I know."
Driving over to Morley's office I found myself nearly overwhelmed with uncertainty. This was ridiculous. Morley wouldn't have eaten anything laced with Brasso or Snarol. He was hardly an epicurean, but he surely would have noticed the first time he slurped up a spoonful of Malathion or Sevin. I couldn't speak to the issue of his medications. None of the bottles had been empty, or even low, so it didn't look as if he'd overdosed, accidentally or otherwise. The two prescriptions that came in capsule form could have been tampered with, of course. I gathered that most days the back door was left unlocked and open. Anyone could have walked in and replaced his pills with something fatal.
I reached Morley's office and parked in the driveway. I rounded the bungalow and moved toward the front door, toting my plastic garbage bag like a vagrant Santa Claus. On second viewing, the place seemed even more depressing than it had at first. The exterior siding was painted the bright turquoise of Easter eggs, the window frames and roof trim done in sooty white. Various signs in the plate glass window, tucked in among the snowdrifts, announced that the salon was now stocking Jhirmack and Redken. I went in.
This time the shop was empty and Betty, whom I took to be the owner, was having coffee and a cigarette at the back while she worked on her accounts. "Where is everybody?"
"They're all out at lunch. Jeannie has a birthday and I said I'd mind the phones. What can I do for you?"
"I need to get back into Morley's office."
"Help yourself," she said and shrugged.
Someone had pulled the shades down. The light in the room was tawny, overcast sun filtered through cracked paper. Along with the smell of mildew and carpet dust, I picked up the scent of old cigarette butts mingling with the smell of scorched coffee and fresh smoke that wafted through the heating vent from the salon adjacent.
A cursory check of the desk drawers and file cabinets netted me nothing in the way of toxic substances. In the bathroom, I found a can of Comet so close to empty the remaining cleanser had formed pellets that rattled around the bottom like dried peas. The medicine cabinet was empty except for a half-empty bottle of Pepto-Bismol. I added that to my plastic bag in case the contents had been infused with rat poison, powdered glass, or mothballs. Having staged this little melodrama, I felt obliged to play it all the way out to the end. The bathroom waste can was empty. I returned to the office to check the wastebasket under Morley's desk but there was no sign of it. I looked around in puzzlement. I'd seen it in here my first trip.
I opened the connecting door and stuck my head into the salon. "Where'd Morley's wastebasket disappear to?"
"Out on the porch."
"Thanks. Can you do me another favor?"
"I can try," she said.
"Morley's office might turn out to be a crime scene; we won't know for another couple days. Can you keep it secure?"
"Meaning what? Don't let anybody in?"
"Right. Don't touch anything and don't throw anything away."
"That's how Morley kept it in the first place," she said.
I closed the door again and retrieved the wastebasket from the front porch, where the Ho Chi Minh of ant trails now meandered across the concrete. Gingerly, I poked through, brushing ants away. I sat down on the top step and began to empty the contents. Discarded papers, catalogues, used Kleenex, Styrofoam coffee containers. The cardboard box, with the half-eaten pastry in it, had now become sole food source for the teeming colony of ants. I set the box on the porch beside me and did a quick study of the contents. Morley must have stopped off at the bakery on his way into the office, picked up a sweetie, and brought it back with him. He'd eaten half of it and then tossed the rest in the trash, probably feeling guilty about breaking his diet. I peered at the pastry closely, but I had no idea what I was looking at. It didn't appear to be fruit, but what else do you make strudel with? I gathered the remnants carefully and wrapped them in the paper that had come with the box.
&nbs
p; There was nothing else of interest. I piled everything back in the wastebasket and tucked it just inside the door, which I locked behind me. I returned to my car and took the entire collection of detritus to the coroner's office, where I left it with the secretary to pass along to Burt.
I was ready to pack it in for the day and head home. The whole case was making my stomach hurt. I was feeling bummed out and depressed. The only thing I'd actually accomplished so far was to dismantle Lonnie's case. Thanks to my efforts, the informant's testimony had now been called into question and the defendant himself had an alibi. If I made many more of these sterling contributions, Barney's attorney would have grounds for dismissal. I could feel the anxiety begin to churn in my chest and I felt the kind of gut-level fear I hadn't experienced since grade school. Not to whine about it, but in some ways I could see that my being fired from CF was generating a crisis of confidence. I had always acted from instinct. I was often frustrated in the course of an investigation, but I operated with a sort of cocky self-assurance, buoyed up by the belief that in the end I could do the job as well as the next man. I'd never felt quite as insecure as I was feeling now. What would happen if I had my ass fired for the second time in six weeks?
I went home and cleaned my apartment like Cinderella on uppers. It was the only thing I could think of to offset my anxiety. I grabbed some sponges and the cleanser and attacked the bathroom off the loft. I don't know how men cope with life's little stresses. Maybe they play golf or fix autos or drink beer and watch TV. The women I know (the ones who aren't addicted to junk food or shopping) turn to cleaning house. I went to town with a rag and a johnny mop, mowing down germs with copious applications of disinfectants, variously sprayed and foamed across every visible surface. Any germs I didn't kill, I severely maimed.
