Innocent in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “Okay, I get that. Is everything all right?”

  “No, it’s really not. But I’m not going to talk about it. Let’s do the job.” But the silence that dropped back was worse. Eve dragged a hand through her hair. “Talk about something else. You never shut the hell up most of the time. Talk about something else, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Ummmm. I can’t think of anything. It’s too much pressure. Oh, oh! I know. Are you all set for tomorrow night?”

  “Set for what?”

  “Now.”

  “If it’s now, it’s not tomorrow night. What did you smoke for breakfast?”

  “All I had was rehydrated grapefruit. The holiday weight just won’t get the hell off me. It’s all cookies.” Peabody gave a mournful sigh. “My ass is entirely made up of cookies.”

  “What kind? I like cookies.”

  “Every kind,” Peabody said. “I have no strength against the mighty variety tin of Christmas cookies. My grandmother still makes them from scratch.”

  “I thought cookies were made of sugar.”

  “Scratch is from sugar—and flour and eggs and carob chips and butter. Mmmm, butter.” Peabody closed her eyes and dreamed of it. “Like from cows.”

  “Cows are a milk thing.” Eve waited while a herd of pedestrians tromped across the crosswalk. “And I don’t understand why anyone wants to drink something that comes out of a cow like, well, piss.”

  “You make butter from milk. If you’re talking real deal. Damn it, now I’m hungry. I can’t talk about cookies, my ass is expanding just from the conversation. I was talking about something. Oh, Now.”

  “It was now, it became then. Now it’s now all over again.”

  Brow knit, Peabody turned her head to look at Eve. “You’re trying to confuse me, and hey—nice job. You know I mean Nadine’s new show. You’re first up tomorrow for the premiere.”

  “And I’m trying not to think about it.”

  “It’s going to be mag. What are you wearing?”

  “I thought, just for a kick, I’d try clothes.”

  “Come on, Dallas, the show’s national and satellite and it’s getting megahype. Let Roarke pick out your outfit.”

  Eve’s eyes narrowed into sharp slits; she felt a snarl rising in her throat. “I know how to dress. I’ve been wearing clothes for years now.” She thought of Magdelana again, and the bold red dress with silver shoes. “I’m a cop, not some fashion whore. If he wanted someone who struts around on stilts wearing fancy dresses, he shouldn’t have married me.”

  “I don’t think your wardrobe was a big factor.” Cautiously, Peabody dipped a toe in dangerous waters. “Did you guys have a fight?”

  “Not exactly. But I think we’re due.” Eve punched it to swing around a sedan, then zipped onto a second-level street spot. “This is close enough.”

  “I’ll say.” Peabody got her wind back, then jogged down to the sidewalk behind Eve.

  The bitter cold drilled straight to the bone, and a whipping wind raced down the urban canyons. Eve shoved her ungloved hands into her pockets, and pushed her mind back to the job.

  “She’s got nothing to hide, she won’t have a problem with us looking around her place. Otherwise, we can get a warrant quick enough. We look for any sign of the poison, that includes the beans themselves, or any by-product. I want to go through his data and communications, any discs, and paperwork. I want to know what he kept in his top dresser drawer, hidden in his coat pockets. The works.”

  Peabody sighed with relief when they entered the building and shut out February’s blast. “If their place is like Kowoski’s, it won’t take long.”

  After the hike up the stairs, Eve knocked on the door. It was opened by a woman with tired eyes and glossy dreadlocks. “Can I help you?”

  “Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody to see Lissette Foster.”

  “You’re the police investigating Craig’s death. I’m Cicely Bolviar, Lissy’s mother. Please come in. She’s in the bathroom.” Cicely sent a worried glance toward the closed bathroom door. “She’s taking a shower. She didn’t sleep last night. I’m going to make breakfast. She needs to eat something. I’m sorry.” She turned back to Eve and Peabody. “Please sit. Would you like coffee?”

  “Don’t trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. I want to make her something. We’re meeting Craig’s family this afternoon to talk about…” Her lips quivered. “To talk about arrangements. I want to make her something to eat.”

  “When did you get to New York, Ms. Bolviar?”

  “Late last night. I came as soon as…when Lissy called to tell me, I came. She needs her maman now. He called me that, too. Maman.” She moved into the kitchen bump, then stood as if she didn’t know what to do next.

  “It was here she wanted to live, my Lissy, and because she had Craig, I didn’t worry. In a few years, he told me—they were so young—in a few years, they’d start a family, and I’d be Grandmaman. That’s what he said. Do you know what this person killed? They killed that sweet boy, and that family he and Lissy would have made. They killed that joy. Do you know how this happened?”

  “We’ll need to speak with your daughter.”

  “Bien sûr. Please sit. I’ll make coffee. They have egg substitute. At home, I have eggs from the chickens my neighbor keeps, but here…He was a sweet boy.” Her tired eyes gleamed with tears. “Such a sweet boy. This should never have happened. Please sit.”

  There was a bright blue couch with bright green pillows and two chairs covered in the same vivid colors done in wide stripes. A streamlined workstation took up one corner of the room while a small table with two chairs stood in the other. The arrangement, the order, the flashing colors gave the stingy space style and function.

  Cicely walked to the bathroom door, rapped lightly. “Mignon, the police are here. The lieutenant and detective. She’ll only be a moment,” she told Eve. “I’ll make the coffee now.”

  Lissette came out in loose pants and a sweatshirt with thick socks on her feet. She looked like a woman who was suffering from a long illness. Her color had gone pasty, her eyes were dull and swollen. She moved as if her bones hurt.

  “You know something more?” Her voice was like rusted metal. “Something about Craig?”

  Eve got to her feet. “Have a seat, Mrs. Foster.”

  “I went to see him. We went to see him. His parents and I went to that place. It wasn’t a mistake. You said it wasn’t. It broke them to pieces. His mom and dad, it broke them to pieces. What will I do now?” As if suddenly aware of her surroundings, she looked around the little apartment. “What will I do? Maman.”

  “There, my baby. Sit now.” Cicely came back, eased Lissette into a chair. “Please, can’t you tell us something? Anything? It’s so hard not knowing why, or how.”

  Eve looked into Lissette’s eyes. “Your husband was killed when he ingested a lethal amount of ricin.”

  “Ingested? Ate? Ricin? What is it?”

  “It’s poison,” Cicely murmured and her eyes were huge now, horrified now. “I know this. This is poison.”

  “Poison? But why would he…how did he…”

  “It was in the hot chocolate,” Eve told Lissette and watched the woman go gray.

  “No. No. No. That’s not right. I made it for him. I made it myself. Every morning once the weather gets cold. And when it warms again, I make him sweet cold tea. Every day. You think I hurt Craig? You think I—”

  “No, I don’t.” After more than eleven years on the job, Eve knew when to trust her gut. “But in order to clear you so that we can pursue other avenues, we’d like to look around the apartment. We’d like your permission to search it, to go through your husband’s computer, his work, his personal items.”

  “Wait. Please.” Lissette gripped her mother’s hand. “You said poison. You said Craig was poisoned. How could he have taken poison by mistake?”

  “They don’t think it was a mistake,” Cicely said. “Do you?”

  “N
o.”

  “But then…” Color came back into Lissette’s face, dull and red as she slowly rose to her feet. “Deliberately? Someone did this to him? For what? He hurt no one, ever. Not ever.”

  “Mrs. Foster, we believe ricin was added to your husband’s drink at some point on the morning he died.”

  “But I made the drink. I made it.” She rushed over to the little kitchen area. “Here, right here. Every morning I make his lunch because it pleases him so much. It takes only a few minutes, and it pleases him so much, I…”

  Cicely murmured in French as she went to her daughter.

  “No, no, no. I made it just like every morning. The sandwich, the fruit, the chips he likes. And I made the chocolate like you taught me, Maman. He loves it. Right here, right here.” She spread her hands. “I made the chocolate.”

  “Lissy.” Cicely laid her hands on her daughter’s damp cheeks. “Don’t do this.”

  “Lissette, did you make the drink in a black insulated thermos?”

  “Yes, yes.” Lissette leaned against her mother. “The jumbo-sized go-cup. With his name on it. I gave it to him when he started at the school, a little gift, and the black lunch bag.”

  “This is what he’d normally carry to school?”

  “Every day, yes. Every day. What difference does it make?”

  “It’s just details,” Eve said easily. “We’re investigating both how and why this was done, so details matter. We’d like to look through your apartment.”

  “Why?” Lissette stared down at her hands. “Why would anyone hurt Craig?”

  “I don’t have answers for you at this time.”

  “You want to look through our things because it will help you find the answers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look at anything, at everything. He has more at the school. On his computer there, in his desk there. Do whatever you need to do. I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to watch while you go through our things. Can we go out?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Maman, we’ll go out, and let them…Maman, someone killed Craig. Maman.”

  Eve stood back as the mother comforted the daughter, as she helped the grieving widow into boots, coat, scarf.

  “I’ll take her to breakfast,” Cicely told Eve. “There’s a place down the street. We’ll be there if you need us.”

  “Thank you.” Eve waited until the door shut behind them. “Took the same cup every day.”

  “Fits his MO,” Peabody said. “Routine.”

  “Yeah, so he not only habitually drank the same thing every day, but out of the same thermos. Used that same thermos for over a year. Maybe, for efficiency’s sake, the killer bought a dupe, just switched the cups.”

  “We can run the make and model, retail outlets.”

  “Yeah, we can. Let’s do the room first. Let’s go to work, Peabody.”

  5

  THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE APARTMENT THAT spoke of murder. No poisons hidden away in secret compartments, no threatening correspondence or incriminating photographs.

  There was, as far as Eve could see—as far as she could feel—only the lives of two everyday people whose marriage had still been shiny and new.

  The shared work area held his professional debris, and hers, as well as silly, sexy e-mails they sent to each other. Signs, Eve thought, of that first rush of love and belonging where nothing was more important or immediate as the two of you. There were ’link transmissions to and from Lissy and her mother, one from Mirri Hallywell who’d talked to both the Fosters—confirming a study date with Craig and chatting with Lissy about a date with someone called Ben.

  The night before he died, Craig Foster had outlined the pop quiz he would never spring on his students, and had put nearly an hour into a paper on the economic and social developments post–Urban Wars.

  The screen saver on the comp unit was a wedding portrait—Lissette in flowing white, Craig in formal black, sharing what Eve assumed was their first kiss as husband and wife.

  “It’s a tough one,” Peabody commented when they were back in their vehicle. “Looking around that place, everything’s new. Everything was just getting started. Now it’s done. The good wine glasses—had to be a wedding gift—barely used. Matching towels and shower curtain, dried flowers from her wedding bouquet, the disc of the ceremony and party. It’s tough.”

  “It’s tougher because nothing in there pointed to motive. They don’t have money, they don’t use illegals, the probability of either of them having an affair at this stage is next to zip. So what was his secret?”

  “His secret?”

  “People have them. Little pockets they keep to themselves. Things a man wouldn’t share with his wife.”

  Frowning, Peabody shook her head. “At their stage, and from the vibe, I don’t see them keeping secrets.”

  “That’s what makes them secret,” Eve muttered, and hunted up parking near the school.

  Inside, they passed through security, waited to be cleared. She saw a couple of staff members crossing the main hall. Each wore a black armband. “Let’s go over the timing and movements. If the ricin didn’t come from home, it came from here.”

  Peabody pulled out her memo book. “Vic signed in at six-forty-two. His wife’s statement has him leaving the apartment about six-thirty.”

  “He walked. Find an apartment close to work so you can walk and save transpo costs. It would take seven, eight minutes to walk it, so it’s unlikely he made any stops on the way. Nothing open at that hour on the route. Closest twenty-four/seven is three blocks west.”

  Peabody nodded. “There’s a deli a block over, but it doesn’t open until seven.”

  “Okay. So he puts on his coat, gets his briefcase, his packed lunch, kisses his wife good-bye, and walks to work. Comes in the main, like we did. Goes through security, gets signed in. He’s going to work out, so he’d go to his classroom, store his stuff for the day. Coat, gloves, hat, scarf. Briefcase, which contains his last meal.”

  She headed that way now, taking the most logical route. “No one interviewed mentioned seeing or speaking to him before he made it to the fitness area. He goes upstairs first.”

  She stopped at the classroom door, uncoded the police seal, entered. “Puts the briefcase on the desk, stows the lunch in the drawer, hangs up his coat. Efficient guy, orderly guy,” she murmured. “Wears the workout gear in. Takes his duffle with his school clothes with him down to the fitness area.”

  “Affirmative.” Peabody read her notes. “We’ve got the duffle with his workout gear in it.”

  “Goes down to the main level,” Eve continued as they backtracked. “Goes down to work out, leaving his classroom—including his go-cup—unattended.”

  “Yeah.”

  They walked back out, toward the fitness area. “According to wit statements, he’s already in the gym, on the machines, when he’s first seen.”

  “Reed Williams, approximately seven-ten.”

  “What time did Williams sign in?”

  “Six-forty-five.”

  “So what was Williams doing between six-forty-five and seven-ten? We’ll have another chat with him. Mosebly stated she saw the vic in the pool area as she was leaving it at approximately seven-thirty.”

  “Signed in at six-fifty.”

  “Bunch of early birds. We’ll follow up with her, too. And sooner than later,” Eve added when Mosebly strode toward them.

  “Lieutenant, Detective. I was alerted by Security that you were here.” She wore unrelieved black today—skirt, jacket, boots. “I’d appreciate it if you’d check in with my office when you come to the academy.”

  “Thought you might have shut down for the day,” Eve countered. “Considering.”

  “After meeting with our mental health counselors, I decided against it. It’s felt the students will benefit more from routine, and being with each other, able to talk openly about their fears and feelings. We had a moment of silence this morning, and are planning a memorial for
later this week. Has there been progress?”

  “The investigation is ongoing. What did you do before you took a swim yesterday?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You signed in at six-fifty. What did you do?”

  “Let me think. So much has happened since…I went to my office to check my day planner, and organize for the day. I had an eight o’clock. Why?”

  “It’s in the details. Did you see anyone? Talk with anyone prior to the swim?”

  “Yes, actually. I spoke briefly with Bixley as I came in. He was clearing the steps—the snow? I asked him to be sure to check them periodically during the day. And I saw Laina Sanchez, our chief nutritionist, as she came in right behind me. I made some comment about the weather, I believe. Then I went to my office, spent some time reviewing my day. Took my swim.”

  “Did you go through the fitness area?”

  “No, I used the staff locker room to change into my suit, then went straight into the pool. What happened to Craig, Lieutenant? Rumors are flying, and it’s only more upsetting for all of us not to know.”

  “He was poisoned. Can anyone access the fitness area?”

  “Poisoned?” She took a step back. “Dear God. Did he eat anything out of Vending? Out of the lounge, the cafeteria? I need to speak with Laina right away.”

  “He didn’t get it from the school’s supplies.”

  Relief, instant and full, flashed on Mosebly’s face. “Thank God. It’s terrible,” she said quickly. “Of course, it’s terrible that something he brought from home was responsible. But I have to think of the students, the rest of the staff.”

  “Sure.”

  “So, it was an accident, then. An allergic reaction of some kind.”

  “It’s homicide,” Eve said flatly, and saw the relief drain away. “Principal Mosebly, I need to know the whereabouts of everyone who was here that morning before class. And up to the time Foster had his lunch. Can anyone—staff, students—access this area?”