The In Death Collection Books 26-29 - J.D. Robb [211]
“Were you able to start on him?”
“Yes, indeed. Some tests still pending,” Morris added as they moved down, then into an autopsy room. “COD was what I assume you’d expected. Cyanide poisoning. He’d also ingested a tad over eight ounces of vodka and approximately thirty ounces of spring water in the last hours of his life. He’d had fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, fried onions, collard greens, biscuits, and peach pie with vanilla ice cream about six P.M. And, if that wasn’t enough, about ten ounces of deep fried pork rinds with sour cream dip at around eight.”
“I’m surprised he had room for the cyanide,” Eve mumbled.
“I’m going to guess he ate that way with some regularity as he was about thirty pounds overweight. Carried most of it in his belly, as you see.”
It was hard not to as Jimmy Jay was currently splayed out naked on a slab.
“Unlike your previous entry, I’d say this one didn’t believe in regular exercise, and liked to eat, preferring his food fried, starchy, and/or full of refined sugar. Take away the cyanide, and it’s still unlikely your soul saver would have made his given one-twenty.”
“How much cyanide?”
“Nearly half again as was used for your priest.”
“Take him down, quick and hard. If he’d ingested it slowly, over the course of, say, an hour? If he’d had some laced in to his water bottles—multiple?”
“He’d have felt ill—weak, confused, short of breath.”
“So not that way. All at once. The first two bottles onstage were most likely clean. It’s about timing. Third bottle is consumed right around break time. Everything, everyone’s revved up, he’s in his groove. Sweating, preaching, pulls off his jacket. That’s routine—the audience loves it. Can’t risk it happening after the break,” Eve said half to herself. “Can’t risk even the slight possibility someone else might drink from that bottle, or that bottle is replaced. So it has to be before the break, when he’s still by himself onstage. But for the biggest impact, at the end of that period.”
“The daughter put them onstage,” Peabody pointed out.
“Yeah. Yeah. What does it take?” Eve paced away from the body. “All you have to do is cross that stage. Everyone’s used to seeing you, handling details, being around. Who’s going to say: ‘Yo, what are you doing?’ Nobody. You just check the water, that’s all. Making sure the lids are loose for good old Jimmy Jay. And you tip in the cyanide.”
She paced back. “The water’s on the table, behind the drop,” she remembered. “Smarter to do it when the singers are already out there—what do you call it—upstage. In front of the drop. Vic’s in his dressing room, most everyone is except the ones onstage. It takes a minute, if that. Sealed hands, maybe thin gloves, like a doctor’s. I bet there’s a medical on staff. Smart, pretty smart. Still, maybe stupid enough to toss the sealant or gloves, the empty poison container in one of the arena’s recyclers. Why wouldn’t you? It’s just going to prove what you want us to find out anyway. Somebody poisoned him.”
Morris smiled at her. “As Reverend Jenkins and I are now so intimately acquainted, and you appear to know who somebody is, share.”
“His name’s Billy Crocker. And it’s time we had another chat.”
11
THEY TRACKED BILLY DOWN AT THE TOWN HOUSE on Park. The attractive brunette who opened the door looked pale and wrung out—and surprised. “Detective Peabody. Is there—do you have news?”
“No, ma’am. Lieutenant Dallas, this is Merna Baker, the nanny.”
“Oh, hello. I’m sorry, when I saw you on the security screen, I thought . . . Please, come in.”
The foyer was short and wide, narrowing to a hallway Eve noted bisected the house. Merna stood, puffy-eyed, in her calf-skimming dark skirt and blue blouse. Her short hair curled around a face that showed no signs of enhancements.
Wouldn’t have been Jenkins’s type, Eve thought.
“We were told Mr. Crocker was here,” Eve began. “We’d like to speak with him.”
“Oh. Yes, he’s here. He’s back with Jolene and some of the family. We’re . . . It’s such a hard day.”
“We’ll try not to make it