The In Death Collection Books 21-25 - J. D. Robb [436]
“Your all-purpose poison.”
“Very versatile. The lab will process, but I can tell you it appears he drank it—in his hot chocolate.”
“His wife made the chocolate.”
“Ah. I love domestically inclined females.”
“I don’t see her for it. Married a handful of months, no obvious motive. And she copped to making it without a blink.”
“Marriages, even new ones, can be a terrorist camp.”
“Damn right, but she’s not popping for me. Yet anyway.”
“Good-looking young man,” Morris commented. “Athletic build and, I’d say, a harmonic homogeny of races.”
“Harmonic homogeny.” Eve shook her head. “You kill me. He was a teacher—history, private school, Upper West Side. Left his lunch in his classroom, habitually. Ate at his desk Mondays, habitually. No security cameras in the classrooms or corridors. Private schools aren’t required to have them. Wouldn’t have been hard for anybody to doctor his drink. What we’re missing at this point is why anyone would. Guy’s coming off as a nice, harmless mensch.”
“Someone, I’d say, didn’t like your mensch. This kind of poisoning isn’t just lethal, it’s extremely painful.” Hands deft as a violinist’s, Morris removed the heart. “He didn’t live long after he ingested it, but while he did, he suffered a great deal.”
She looked back at the body. What did you do, Craig, to piss somebody off this much? “His wife wants to see him. She’s notifying his parents, and I assume they will, too.”
“After nine this evening. I’ll have him prepared for viewing.”
“I’ll let them know.” She frowned back at Morris. “Where the hell do you get castor beans?”
He only smiled. “I’m sure you’ll find out.”
Peabody, slightly shamefaced, loitered by Vending. “Before you say anything, here’s a nice cold tube of Pepsi. And I put my time to good use. I’ve started runs on the staff members at Sarah Child and verified life insurance policies on both the vic and his wife. Vic gets his through work bennies. Fifty thousand, with the wife as beneficiary.”
“Pretty piddly motive.” Eve took the tube, pleased that it was, indeed, nice and cold. “We’ll hit their financials, see if she had any major debts. Maybe she’s the gambler, or the one with an illegals habit.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Eve cracked the tube, swigged as they walked. “Unless there’s more money somewhere, the fifty doesn’t do it for me. And if there was marital discord, let’s say, a spouse generally goes for contact, for the personal. This was nasty, but remote. He pissed somebody off.”
Peabody rewound her scarf, replaced her gloves as they hit the doors and the cold exploded like an ice boomer. “Rejected lover, colleagues in competition.”
“We’ll want to look closer at Mirri Hallywell.”
“Parents of a student who he disciplined, or who wasn’t doing well in his class.”
“Jesus.” Eve jammed her hands in her pockets, and discovered she’d lost yet another pair of gloves. “Who kills because their kid gets a big doughnut in a history class?”
“Parents are weird and dangerous creatures. And I worked up another theory. Maybe it was a mistake.”
“It was ricin poisoning, and Morris’s take is that the dose was intense and quickly lethal.”
“See, what I mean is, maybe one of his students was upset with him.” Peabody mimed a sulky face. “I’ll fix that meanie Mr. Foster. Doctors his drink thinking he’ll maybe get sick. Oops.”
“Not entirely stupid.” They climbed into the vehicle, where both hissed out the breath the blustery cold had them holding.
“Jesus, Jesus, why is there February?” Eve demanded. “February should be eliminated altogether for the good of mankind.”
“It is the shortest month, so that’s something.” Peabody actually moaned as the heat came on. “I think my corneas are frozen. Can that happen?”
“They can in fucking February. Let’s stick with Foster’s nearest and dearest first. We’ll go by their building, talk to a few neighbors. Most particularly the retired cop.”
“Once a cop,” Peabody nodded, and began to blink cautiously to help her potentially frozen corneas thaw out. “If there was anything off going on, he’d probably have noticed.