Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [126]
Karen dutifully led D.D. into the Admin area, where Lightfoot had stowed a brown leather satchel. D.D. flipped it open to find a container of Greek yogurt and a bag of sunflower seeds. She took the food for testing, then returned to the common area, where she could see the staff eyeing one another nervously for imminent medical collapse.
“Anyone else have iced tea?” D.D. asked.
One by one, they shook their heads.
“Who’s eaten here tonight?”
Four staff members slowly raised their arms. D.D. noted that Greg and Danielle were not among them.
“What time?”
The MCs had started at seven p.m., taking a snack break between nine and nine-thirty.
“Good news,” D.D. informed them. “Strychnine is one of the fastest-acting poisons, with symptoms emerging within five minutes of ingestion, so if you’re vertical now, you’re probably going to be vertical later. Timeline fits what we saw tonight: Lightfoot opened his drink, took a few sips, started the meditation, drank a bit more, and I’d say about eight minutes into it …”
“Collapsed in full convulsion,” Karen filled in, her voice subdued. Everyone stared at the table that Lightfoot had been sitting on.
“Strychnine is odorless,” D.D. informed the anxious staff members, “but has a bitter taste. So if you run across anything that tastes funky, set it aside immediately. I’ll phone the lab, have them send someone over to test the water, as well as everything in the kitchen, but that’ll take some time. When are the kids due to eat again?”
“Not until breakfast,” Karen supplied, “though some of the kids need a middle-of-the-night snack.”
D.D. thought about it. “Stick to food or drink items that come from sealed packages. Snack-sized cereals, that sort of thing. As long as the seal hasn’t been broken, they should be okay. Make sense?”
Everyone nodded mutely.
“All right. Who saw Lightfoot with the iced tea?”
The one with the short-cropped hair raised her arm. Cecille. “Um, I was one of the first people to take a seat. Andrew wasn’t here yet, but the iced tea was already on the table, like he’d maybe just opened it, then went to get something. Or maybe he went to throw away the cap.”
“The cap!” D.D. agreed. She marched over to the trash can. Right on top, one white lid stamped Koala Iced Tea. D.D. snapped on gloves and fished it out. Metal, for sealing a glass bottle. Not the kind of container that could be easily tampered with—say, penetrated by a syringe. Nope. Cap came off. Poison went in.
Now, possibly, the product had been poisoned at the warehouse level, part of a massive terrorist act. Or possibly, Lightfoot’s barky little dog had plotted revenge and spiked her master’s tea on the home front.
But D.D. was willing to bet Lightfoot’s distinctive beverage took the hit while sitting exposed in the common area.
“How long was Lightfoot gone?” she asked Cecille.
The MC shrugged. “I’m not sure. Not long. A few minutes. Five minutes maybe. People were starting to gather. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
D.D. looked around the room. One by one, everyone dropped their gazes.
“I was with a kid,” Greg volunteered softly. He glanced at Danielle. “She was with me. We came late.”
Establishing alibis. D.D. liked it. And they thought the milieu of the unit had been compromised before.
“I don’t understand,” Karen spoke up. “Why would someone poison Andrew? I mean, this whole thing … This is crazy.”
“Good question.” D.D. considered it. “Maybe because you brought him here to fix the unit. Calm it down. Following that logic, maybe someone doesn’t want the unit calmed down. That person wants you all jumpy and edgy and chasing after exploding kids. Lightfoot’s poisoned. You’re all freaked-out as hell. Mission accomplished.