However, if you approach it obliquely, you might uncover what the person knows without knowing they know. Connor had instructed me to ask about recent changes in behavior and to consider what the suspect would need. For example, supplies, contacts, times, locations, excuses, and that sort of thing, then ask general questions around that.
I took a deep breath and dived in. “Did your late husband—Michael—change his behavior lately? Like taking up a new routine or hobby? Or acting strangely?”
“Well, yes, I suppose so. He’s never been very interested in our son Jaden. Michael’s a tough disciplinarian, the same as his own father was. But this year he started taking Jaden to football practice. Michael had never done anything like that before, but I hoped it was because he’d realized he could relate more to Jaden now that he’s growing up.”
I thought about what football practice might have to do with drugs. Contacts? Supplies? “Did he get along with the other parents?” I asked. “Or anyone in particular?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t want me coming, so I stayed home. He told me he wanted some proper father-son time.”
“How did Jaden react to it?”
“He wasn’t so sure at first. As I said, Michael’s always been tough on him. But after the first few times, he seemed okay with it.”
“Did Mr. Watts bring anything with him to the games?” If he was dealing or picking up drugs, I figured he’d need something to carry them in.
“Yes. Jaden’s gym bag and a cooler with a couple of beers.”
“Have you looked in there for the stash?”
Her eyes widened, and she pushed herself up. “I’ll do it now.” She limped back a minute later with the two bags and plonked them on the table. We all peered in eagerly as she opened the gym bag, then reeled backward as she pulled out a pair of socks, stiff with sweat. “Sorry about that.” Her cheeks went pink. “I didn’t get around to doing the washing this week.”
“No need to apologize,” Etta told her.
Nicole disposed of the socks and kept digging. She pulled out a helmet, a red jersey, pants, shoulder pads, elbow pads, and pads for well, the family jewels, and a pair of cleats. No drugs. Emptied of its contents, the bag was so light that after a brief shake, we knew it couldn’t be hiding anything in the lining. The cooler was empty too. I felt around the padded sides, feeling for anything amiss, but found nothing.
Damn.
Nicole sank back down in her chair, looking deflated.
But just because Michael hadn’t kept the drugs in the bags didn’t mean he hadn’t put them in there at some point.
“Can you think of any other behavioral changes?” I asked.
She stared at the table. “He started going out more often after work. I thought maybe he was cheating on me, so I followed him a couple of times. On both occasions he went to a bar in Hollywood Heights and met with a man but someone different each time. I figured it must’ve been a business thing or his friends from work.”
His mysterious meetings at the bar would’ve been an excellent setup to discreetly deal drugs. Small, dimly lit rooms with the view obscured by those brown leather couches. “Did he bring anything with him when he went to the bar?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Not a briefcase or something like that?”
She shook her head. “Nothing except his wallet.”
I mulled that over. If my speculation about his purpose at the bar was correct, then he must have been dealing quantities small enough to fit in his pocket or wallet. But he had to keep the main supply somewhere. “Did he always take the same car?”
“Yes. I mean, we never swap cars, so yes.”
That must be it. “Where is it?”
She put a hand to her throat. “The police have it. That’s where he was… murdered.” Then realization dawned. “You think whatever they’re looking for is in his car?”
“Maybe. If he had a supply of drugs that he wasn’t using, it follows that he must’ve been dealing them. His meetings at the bar would be a good place to hand them over to customers. But he would have needed to keep them somewhere, and the car’s a logical choice. It would save him from sneaking them in and out past you and Jaden as well.”
The pallor of her skin made her look ill. “If it’s true, then I can’t stop those men from going after Jaden. The police won’t let me near it. I’m the spouse, which automatically makes me a suspect.”
While it was nice to hear the LAPD had at least considered someone else as a possible suspect, it was going to make our search for the drugs impossible.
“We’ll figure something out,” Etta promised her again.
Suddenly my burned apartment no longer seemed like such a big problem.
I was scheduled to serve Vanessa at yet another lunch date, but she texted me to say it had been canceled. The “friend” she’d been meeting had come down with food poisoning. Or more likely, an overdose of laxatives like the one Vanessa had narrowly avoided.
It was terrible to be glad of another’s misfortune, but I took the news with relief. Connor had cleared his whole day to help solve the dangerous-thugs problem, and after the past twenty-four hours, the last thing I felt like was protecting Vanessa from paltry threats to her beauty.
Etta was less glad about it since she’d made plans with a friend for the hours I’d expected to be working. “Maybe I should cancel,” she mused. “I’d hate to miss any of the action.”
“You won’t. This car-crime-scene issue is going to take ages for us to figure out a way around. If we figure it out at all. Besides, doing something completely different while your subconscious works away at it might give you the flash of inspiration we need.”
She harrumphed but dropped me off where Connor was waiting and continued on to her date.
“How do we protect Nicole and Jaden?” I asked him when I climbed into the SUV.
“Long term, we need to find the drugs those men are so keen to get ahold of and give it back to them. Short term, I’ll put a security detail on the Wattses.”
“Wait, hand over the stash to the thugs? Why?”
“So we can find out who the hell their boss is and take all the bastards down together.”
“Oh.”
The trouble was, first we needed to find the aforementioned stash. Which was most likely in the car. Which was in police lockup.
“You’re so lucky to have me,” Connor said.
“Well sure, but which of your many virtues should I be thanking my lucky stars for now?”
“I might be able to get access to that car.”
I wondered if he was pulling my leg, but that wasn’t Connor’s style. “Really? How?”
“Hunt.”
He meant Police Commander Hunt. The one that probably used my face for target practice.
“He hates you almost as much as he hates me. What makes you think he’ll give you access to a crime scene that’s got nothing to do with the Taste Society?”
“Because I have good reason to believe that it does have something to do with the Taste Society. From what we know, there are illicit drugs and poisons in that crime scene. Watts would have had to shift large quantities of recreational drugs to make enough money to make it worth his while, and his lack of repeat customers don’t fit the pattern of addictive street drugs. Given his clientele and his behavior, I’d say there’s a good chance he was selling customized poisons to his rich and powerful friends.”
I hadn’t given much thought to how the rich and famous acquired their weapon of choice. It made sense that there had to be dealers.
“Will it be enough to convince Hunt to help?” I asked.
“It’s part of our cooperation agreement that the liaison will assist us in taking that type of thing out of circulation. It’s not like I’m trying to take over his case.”
I bit my lip. “Um. There might be a problem.”
“What?”
“Etta and I kind of went to the police station hoping to get some in
formation from a sympathetic officer. Instead, I spoke to Hunt, who of course got it into his head that I was interfering with his case.”
“You are.”
“That’s beside the point. The point is, he might be suspicious of your motives now, and if he ever realizes we’re dating, you could be compromising that important liaison relationship.”
Connor’s lips thinned. “Then we better find those damn poisons.”
17
Connor had been using the term “we” loosely. I would make myself scarce while he approached Hunt about searching the car. Since I couldn’t imagine the police had cleaned the blood and brain matter off the seat, I was secretly grateful I had a reason to stay away. Connor dropped me at my apartment to continue taking stock of everything that would need to be done.
Mostly, I just sat down on an unburned patch of the floor and felt overwhelmed. Then I worked up the courage to call the landlord and break the news to my housemate, Oliver.
Because the events—despite what Connor was telling Hunt—had nothing to do with the secretive Taste Society, and because Etta knew the true version already, for once I didn’t have to lie to Oliver. When I’d finished recounting the whole story and reassuring him that Meow and all the belongings in his room were okay, I sucked in some breaths and waited. I’m not sure what I was expecting. Cursing? A rant about the Queen not having to deal with this kind of thing? But I could never have anticipated his actual reaction.
He laughed. An uncontrollable, high-pitched, eyes-streaming sort of laugh that had me wondering if he was hysterical. “You”—he managed to get out—“let Etta”—more laughter—“talk you into that?”
I waited for his chortling to subside. “I don’t see what’s so funny. Did you miss the bit where our apartment almost burned down?”
“S-sorry.” He choked down more laughter. “I’m sure it must’ve been a very traumatic experience. But I can’t believe you and Etta fancy yourselves detectives!”
It sounded like he was in danger of bursting from his mirth.
“I do not! Etta guilted me into attempting to help. I told her it was a bad idea, but I never thought it would turn out this bad. You get that everything in the living area will need replacing, right?”
“Sure,” he said, still giggling. “Tough luck, but most of that furniture was junk anyway.”
“I take it you didn’t bother to get renters insurance then?”
He laughed some more, which I took to mean no.
I let out a beleaguered sigh. “All right. Well. I’m glad you’re not upset. And I’ll make sure it’s fixed by the time you get back.”
“Brilliant. See you soon, Iz.”
I hung up the phone, not feeling nearly as relieved as it seemed I should. Despite Oliver’s amusement, I suspected he’d feel differently when he got home to an unfamiliar apartment. He was sentimental and oddly attached to inanimate objects for the memories they held.
He’d kept the first toy he’d ever bought for Meow, even after it broke and Meow would no longer acknowledge its existence. He had a lucky T-shirt that was so worn it was see-through, which he still brought out on special occasions. And while most of the furniture had been old, shabby, and left behind by previous tenants moving onto better things, Oliver had fond memories of some of those housemates. Unimpressed by brands or wealth or style, he put much more value on shared experience than what society said something was worth. He’d gone so far as to keep the letters from the ex-girlfriend who’d broken his heart because he hadn’t wanted to throw the good times out with the bad. The more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt about ruining his sanctum of memories.
Connor rescued me from my musings with a text.
Found drugs under a false bottom in the center console. See you in ten.
Not for the first time, I wondered how he knew where I was before remembering the GPS tracking app he had on my phone. It was a little unnerving to think he could always find me, but it had saved my life at least once. Hard to argue with that.
I was piling all the items that would need to be thrown out in the middle of the living area so I could figure out what size dumpster to hire, when Connor found me. He was immaculate. I was covered in black filth.
He slipped three capsules out of his pocket. “Can you identify what these are?”
I stared at him. “They’ve got pocket lint on them.”
He looked me over in all my sooty glory, a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth, then made a show of brushing them off. “Now can you identify them? The LAPD wouldn’t let me take any so I had to sneak them out. They’ll take at least a month to finish testing them, and I wanted to know what we were dealing with before then. Like, today.”
“Let me wash up first.”
I chose one of the capsules at random, pulled it apart, and sampled the powder inside. It was a custom cocktail of opioids. I couldn’t really tell which ones, and I didn’t need to. Some classes of drugs share a distinct taste and the same antidote, so we didn’t waste energy distinguishing them. Despite their bitter taste, opioids were a favorite of poisoners since every year in the US alone fourteen thousand people died of an overdose on the prescription kind, and a similar number died from the illicit kind. In most cases, the police wouldn’t dig too deep.
A lump formed in my throat. It was opioids that had killed my last client. Whoever was concocting this stuff needed to be taken down.
The second pill was a highly concentrated blood pressure drug. It wasn’t likely to kill the average person, but it would be lethal to someone already on heart medication. And if it was the same type the intended victim was prescribed, cause of death would probably be deemed an accidental overdose. That was if they bothered to test for the drug in the first place.
I tasted the contents of the last capsule. Lithax. It was another popular choice for professional poisoners but a nonlethal one. It was formulated from three prescription drugs to cause a rapid decrease in lithium levels, which would cause the target to have a manic or depressive attack. In rare cases it could lead to suicide, but most of the time it was used to stop the person from being able to function at a high-stakes event. Technically, there were lots of drug combinations that could do the same thing, but this was the only known blend that tasted mild enough to disguise in food. Hence its popularity.
It was a sober reminder of what a Shade is usually up against. For all the pressure brought on by Vanessa’s expectations and strong personality, the stakes were low. I should be grateful for the mini-holiday.
Connor was leaning on a clean patch of wall wearing his no-nonsense business face. The blood pressure pill must have felt too close to home after his mom’s recent heart scare. The way the opioids had been for me.
“Thank you,” he said. “That confirms our suspicions that Watts was dealing high-end custom poisons. And that he wouldn’t have been able to make them himself, which means the person who did is likely to be the same person who hired criminals to retrieve them. I suspect we’re looking for a professional in the medical industry given that they’d need a background in chemistry and access to prescription drugs.”
“Agreed. But that doesn’t narrow it down enough for us to identify them.”
“That’s where our pyromaniac thugs come in.” He pulled out a small black money belt. “The police let me take this, which is what we found the poisons in. And I have photos of its contents, which I sent to the research team so they can find substitutes that’ll pass a quick inspection.”
“Hunt really let you take it?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. He’s a decent detective, but he doesn’t know what you and I got up to in bed this morning.”
My cheeks heated, and Connor’s business face softened. But the poison was too fresh on my tongue to get sidetracked.
“So we get Nicole to give Handsome and Onion Head the money belt with its fake drugs,” I guessed, “and they lead us to whoever hired them.”
Connor nodded. “And with nicknames
like that, I can’t wait to meet these guys.”
Connor and I had lunch at a sushi bar while the research team did their part. Over the salmon sashimi, I coaxed him into talking to me. Any personal topic of his choice, as long as it wasn’t about work. He tried. He really did. But within three sentences, he’d lapsed back into discussing the case.
Well, it was a start. And it was more than I’d ever managed to get from my Taste Society handler Jim.
The thugs had thoughtfully provided a contact number by texting threatening messages to Nicole. So when we were ready, she replied to the last threat to say she’d located what they were looking for and placed it in the letterbox.
Connor, Etta, and I were in separate vehicles so we could take turns tailing them without being obvious about it. Because they knew my car and Etta’s yellow Dodge Charger was too noticeable, we were borrowing cars from Connor’s security company.
At the moment, we were all doing laps of the block after deciding a parked car would be too suspicious if Handsome and Onion Head were feeling wary. I hoped they’d arrive promptly, or we were going to waste a lot of fuel and make the residents suspicious instead. Given the extreme measures the men had taken, Connor was confident they’d respond fast.
A familiar black sedan rolled down the street. Each of Connor’s vehicles had Bluetooth audio and microphones, so we were sharing a three-way call. “They’re here,” I reported, cruising past them as they stopped at the letterbox. “Heading east as long as they don’t do a U-turn.”
“Good. Izzy, get out of sight. Etta, you take the first stretch.”
“Right on,” Etta said, excitement coloring her voice. “I can see them now. Onion Head is returning from the letterbox and re-entering the car.”
That was excellent news. We’d thought that once they got what they wanted, they might pay Nicole another visit to make sure she never talked.
“They’re heading east like Izzy said. Taking a right-hand turn at the T-junction. Since there’s not much other traffic around here, I think one of you should take over as soon as we hit a main road.”
Poison is the New Black: (Bonus story: Taste of Christmas) (An Eat, Pray, Die Humorous Mystery Book 3) Page 14
