Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [22]
“Strychnine,” Mary said. “Five drops in a clear drink and the muscles hit adenosine triphosphate stage. Guy’d be dead in a few minutes. It’s also hard to trace, unless you hit the scene within three hours, because rigor sets in as soon as the body’s dead, not when the temp is down.”
“You’ve given this some fuckin’ thought, I see,” Russo said, looking away from the traffic and at his partner.
“Here’s your coffee,” Mary said, handing Russo the cup and smiling. “Fixed it the way you like it.”
“You drink it,” Russo said. “I ain’t thirsty.”
“I was hoping that’s what you’d say,” Mary said, taking a long sip.
• • •
ALISON WALKER LED the two detectives into the living room and offered them cups of tea and a platter filled with an assortment of fresh-baked cookies. Alison was short, wiry, and, despite the skin lifted tight around her jaw and neck, quite attractive. She had on a peach-colored blouse, tan skirt cut at the knee, and brown pumps. A double string of white pearls wrapped around her collar, and a set of earrings matching her blouse hung under golden-brown hair that was brushed and curled.
Mary Silvestri sat on a thick cream-colored couch that from feel and texture cost double any piece of furniture in her own home. The room was large and immaculately kept, the many antiques chosen with a sharp sense of style and concern for detail. The window behind the pale gray silk curtains was open, letting in a soft spring breeze.
Silvestri looked at the older woman and smiled.
“It’s a beautiful home you have here,” Mary said. “Really. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to keep up with a place like this.”
“It takes a great deal of time and work,” Alison Walker said in an accent so bland and flat, one would never know she was the only child of a New Jersey fisherman.
“And money too, right?” Mary said.
“That goes without saying,” Walker said, her manner finishing-school calm, her clear blue eyes devoid of emotion. “There isn’t much one can do without money.”
“Mind if I light one up?” Russo asked from the other end of the couch, trying hard not to polish off the entire tray of cookies.
“Yes,” Walker said, eyes never moving from Mary. “I do mind.”
“Thanks for nothin’, then,” Russo muttered, tucking his smokes into a shirt pocket.
“Did you know a man named Jamie Sinclair?” Mary asked.
“What do you mean, did?” Walker asked.
“He’s dead,” Russo said. “Someone used him as a coat hanger a couple of days ago. Other than the cookies, that’s why we’re here.”
A hand went over Walker’s mouth and her eyes did a slow, calculated twitch.
Mary glared at Russo. “I’m sorry,” she said, turning to Walker. “Did you know him?” she asked again.
Alison Walker stood from her chair and walked toward the front door of her brownstone. She kept her head up as the sounds of her heels echoed on the polished wood floors.
“You both must leave,” Walker said without turning, the door now open to outside sunlight. “Immediately.”
“We’ll only have to come back again,” Russo said, tossing two cookies into his jacket pocket. “Or have somebody bring you down to us.”
Mary took a napkin off a pile next to the teapot, filled it with cookies, and folded it. She handed the napkin to Russo.
“Wait for me in the car, Sweet Tooth,” Mary said to him. “I’ll be there before you polish these off.”
“You sure?”
“What, you want milk too?” Mary said. “Now, go.”
“You gonna be okay here with her?” Russo asked. “Alone, I mean.”
“She whips out a corkscrew, I’ll scream for you to come get me,” Mary whispered. “Until that happens, be a good boy and go eat your cookies.”
“If she made these,” Russo said, “she ain’t that bad a cook.”
“Lizzie Borden liked to bake too,” Mary said, watching as her partner walked out the door and down the front steps of the brownstone, his pockets lined with cookies. Then she turned back to the older woman.
“You knew him,” Mary said, now sitting next to Alison on the couch. “You didn’t kill him, but you did know him.”
The woman nodded her head slowly and took in a deep breath. “Yes,” Walker said, avoiding