Arsenic with Austen (30 page)

Emily sniffed the air, where Brock's scent still lingered. “If only we could bottle up this smell. That puts him here as clearly as any fingerprint.”

“To you, yeah, but not to a jury. Cologne you can buy over the counter—could be anybody's. Could be the kids' who left the beer cans.” He pointed to a pile of them, half buried in sand next to the driftwood log where Emily had sat before.

Emily grabbed the hair at her temples. “Are we never going to find anything definite? I feel like I'm swimming around in a fog, with nothing to hold on to except wraiths in the mist that dissolve as soon as I touch them.”

He slung an arm around her shoulders. “Think about it, Em. Was there anything in here that would tie Brock or anyone else to murder?”

“Well—now that you mention it, no. Not in itself.”

“Exactly. So why are we interested? Two consenting adults want to carry on in an out-of-the-way place, what's it to us? Legally speaking, I mean.”

She was momentarily stumped. The whole scene had affected her so deeply, there had to be a good reason it was incriminating to somebody.

“One or both of them needed to hide the affair, or they wouldn't have gone to all this trouble.”

“Right.”

“And the woman obviously doesn't want to be associated with Brock, since she got out here so fast to remove the evidence.”

“Right again.”

“So that means—they're in it together? Or she at least knows about it. Might be an accessory. And she's afraid he'll give her away.”

“Bingo. If you look at it that way, the fact that all the stuff is gone helps us more than the stuff itself. Assuming we can get some proof of identity.” He scratched his head. “I am sorry the blanket's gone—that would've been a DNA gold mine.”

“If we got floodlights in here, I bet we'd find something. A blond hair in the sand or
something
.”

“Now you're talking.” He pulled out his phone and called his office. “They'll be out here in fifteen minutes.”

Emily turned and buried her head against his chest. “Oh, Luke. Our cove—a crime scene. We'll never be able to come here again.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “Would you really want to? We have the memories whether we still have the place or not. And at my age, I prefer a bed. I personally can live without sand in my butt.”

That made her giggle. “Me too.”

He led her over to the driftwood log and they sat—companionably at first, her head on his shoulder, their hands intertwined. He stroked her palm in little circles with his thumb. Who knew the palm could be so sensitive? Then he kissed her, and before long she wouldn't have cared if she had sand in every crevice of her body.

The sound of an engine roused them, and they sprang apart. Emily hurriedly tucked stray locks of hair into her bun and tugged her shirt straight. They heard heavy objects being dragged through loose sand, then Luke's two deputies, Pete and Heather, stuck their heads through the cave entrance.

“Chief?” called Pete, squinting into the dark.

“Right here.” Luke's voice cracked a bit before it took on professional authority.

Emily hung back while the three of them put on white bunny suits and got to work with floodlights, tweezers, swabs, and plastic bags. Time slowed to match the pace of their painstaking work. Between weariness, cold, hunger, and frustrated arousal, Emily's nerves overloaded, and she drifted into a state of suspended animation where she felt none of those things, nor any sense of time passing. As if hypnotized, she watched the white figures dissolving in the bright light.

At last Heather cried, “Aha!” She straightened and held up a long blond hair caught in her tweezers.

Luke thumped her on the back. “Good work, Heather.”

After a few more minutes Pete, who had moved away from the blanket area to examine the sand close to the rock wall, raised his arm in triumph. “Jackpot. This was almost buried.” Gripped in his tweezers was a used condom.

Emily's stomach turned, but Luke whistled. “Can't ask for a better sample than that.” He stood up and arched his back, vertebrae popping. “Let's pack up and go home.”

 

twenty-nine

“And how you will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful business, I confess is beyond my comprehension.” …

“I do not mean to justify myself, but at the same time cannot leave you to suppose that I have nothing to urge.”

—Elinor Dashwood and Willoughby,
Sense and Sensibility

Luke sent his deputies off in their Jeep to deliver the samples to the lab, then walked Emily back to Windy Corner. He opened the door of his patrol car and leaned his arm on the top of it. “Course it's gonna take weeks to get results, but at least we've got Brock put away. He can stew in there till we're ready, and then we'll reel in his lady friend. That's assuming we don't get him to talk before that.” His jaw tightened. “I have a feeling he'll talk.”

Emily didn't like the steely glint in Luke's eyes. “You wouldn't—hurt him?”

“Nah. I won't say that never happens in this country, 'cause I've heard stories that'd make you think you were in the Middle East. But it doesn't happen on my watch. Jail's just not a real nice place to be, 'specially for a softie like Brock. Few days of it, and an offer of bail in return for information could start to look pretty good.”

“I don't much like the idea of having him out on bail.”

Luke snorted. “Judge wouldn't either. Didn't say he'd get bail—just said we'd offer it.”

“You'd lie to him?”

“Not lie—just make a promise we can't keep.” He took his arm off the door and cupped her chin. “Emily, if we're right, this man has killed two women and attempted your life. He may have an accomplice who's willing to carry on the work in his absence. Do you think I'd stop at a tiny white lie to keep you safe?”

She swallowed. When he put it that way …

“I'm going to the jail to have a go at him now. You stay safe, hear?”

She nodded. “You too.”

He kissed her lightly, then got into the car and drove off. She felt like a shipwrecked sailor from whom the last life ring had just been whisked away.

Emily went back to the library and
Sense and Sensibility.
Katie brought her some hot chicken soup, which she sipped gratefully in front of the fire, wondering if she would ever feel warm again.

Soon she lost herself in the adventures of Elinor and Marianne, the two sisters of opposite temperaments who took their disappointments in love so very differently—Elinor bearing up in brave silence against the onslaughts of the vindictive Lucy Steele, who insisted on confiding her fears regarding her secret engagement to Elinor's beloved Edward, while Marianne dissolved in hysterical weeping merely because Willoughby was called unexpectedly to London. But Marianne's true heartbreak was not far off, while Elinor's long-suffering would eventually be rewarded.

Late in the afternoon, while Emily was enjoying another of Katie's delicious teas, the doorbell rang and Katie brought a package into the library. “It's from Sweets by the Sea,” she said. “Did you order some candy?”

Emily set down her cup and took the package, a box about a foot square and four inches deep wrapped in brown paper. “Not exactly. I did tell them to continue Beatrice's standing order for me, but I didn't expect it to come so soon. I'm still working on the taffy I bought the other day.”

She unwrapped the box and opened it. A pound of licorice taffy, a bag of assorted gourmet jelly beans, and a box of Turkish delight.

Emily wrinkled her nose. “I should have asked exactly what was in that order. I can't stand Turkish delight. It always makes me think of Edmund and the White Witch.”

Katie bit her bottom lip. “Mind if I have it then? I adore the stuff. The Witch would've had me hooked forever, I'm ashamed to admit.”

“Help yourself.” Emily handed her the box. “Just don't eat it all at once, okay? I don't want to have to nurse you and take care of Lizzie at the same time.”

“I'll be good. I'll have one piece, and then you can hide the box for me till after dinner.”

Katie took her time choosing from what looked to Emily like two dozen identical pieces. She took her treasure to the kitchen while Emily hid the box inside the window seat. “Just like Mr. Spenalzo,” she said to Bustopher, who was lounging on the top of the seat back.

Emily read on till dinnertime. When her stomach called her back out of nineteenth-century London, she realized she hadn't been hearing any dinner-preparation noises from the kitchen or dining room. Instead she heard Lizzie's snuffling waking-up cry and a deep groan from Katie's bedroom.

She knocked softly on the bedroom door. “Katie? Are you all right?”

“No,” came the hoarse reply. Emily opened the door to see Katie curled on her bed in the fetal position. With another groan, she rolled to her feet and stumbled into the adjacent bathroom, whence issued sounds of the most unpleasant bodily functions.

Lizzie was working herself up into a full wail now, so Emily picked her up and soothed her. “Katie? Do you need a doctor?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.” More distressing noises. “I've never gotten sick from one piece of Turkish delight before.”

“Flu, maybe?”

“Haven't heard of any stomach flu going around. Haven't been around anyone to catch it.”

“I'm going to call Doctor Griffiths.” In light of all the evidence converging on Brock, Emily's suspicions of Sam Griffiths had pretty much fallen by the wayside. In any case, she couldn't mean any harm to Katie.

With Lizzie in her arms, Emily awkwardly dialed the clinic and caught Sam on her way out. “Be right there,” Sam said.

Sam was indeed there in five minutes. She examined Katie and asked about what she'd eaten that day. “The only thing out of the ordinary was the Turkish delight,” Emily told her.

“Let me see it,” Sam said.

Emily retrieved the box from Mr. Spenalzo's resting place. Sam took a piece and held it to her nose, then touched a fingertip to the powdery coating and brought it to her tongue. “This isn't just sugar,” she pronounced. “Can't be sure without a test, but I have a gut feeling…” She glanced at Katie on the bed. “Pardon the pun—but I bet it's mixed with arsenic.”

Emily felt the blood leave her face. “Arsenic? But that's what killed Beatrice.”

Sam shot her a sharp look. “What makes you think that?”

“The autopsy. They exhumed her and did a postmortem. She was full of it.”

Sam went white in her turn. Her hands shook, and she nearly dropped the box of candy. Emily took it from her and laid it on the dresser.

Sam took out a handkerchief and wiped her face. She took a deep, shuddering breath and turned to Katie. “You only ate the one piece?”

Katie nodded.

“Feel like the worst of it's over?”

“I think so. I'm just weak.”

“I'll give you a little something for the pain. Just rest for tonight, and you'll be fine by morning.” She fumbled in her bag and brought out a hypodermic and a tiny vial.

Katie looked at Emily with the baby in her arms. “What about Lizzie? And your dinner?”

“You have some breast milk in the freezer, don't you? We'll be fine.”

Sam gave Katie the injection, and then Emily took the box of candy and ushered Sam back into the library. “Now it's time for some honest explanations. You knew it was arsenic with Beatrice, didn't you? Or at least you suspected.”

Sam sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands. “I suspected. A tiny suspicion—easily could've been natural causes. Too late when I got there—nothing I could've done for her, truly—you have to believe that.”

Emily hesitated, then nodded. Sam was a professional, a physician through and through; she'd never be able to stop herself from saving a patient if she could.

“But I knew any question about her death, question of—murder—would hang up the will being proved. Needed my money for the clinic. Had a kid die on me few months ago, acute appendicitis. Could've saved him if I'd had the clinic. Beatrice was an old woman, would've died soon anyway. Meanwhile, I could be saving so many other lives.” She looked up at Emily. “I was wrong. I see that now. Suppose you'll turn me in.”

Emily gazed at her, then turned and walked Lizzie around the room. Sam was a dedicated doctor who cared deeply for the community she served. Should one error in judgment—of which she'd clearly repented—cut her off from that service forever?

But that one error of judgment had led to Agnes's death—as well as what were now two attempts on Emily's own life. That Turkish delight had been meant for her.

Sam's voice dwindled to a whisper. “Could cost me my license.”

“I know. You realize if you'd spoken up, Agnes might still be alive?”

“I've barely slept since she died.”

“But on the other hand, you found the arsenic this time, which could be just what we need to nail the killer.”

Sam looked up, a spark of hope in her eyes.

Emily made her decision. “Let's say you're on probation. But you put one toe out of line, and…” She made a slashing motion across her throat with her free hand.

“Thank you.” Sam got to her feet and gripped Emily's hand in both of hers. “I won't let you down.”

Lizzie's intermittent fussing escalated into a full-scale hungry wail. “I'd better get this baby a bottle. Can you see yourself out?”

Emily watched Sam out the front door, then went into the kitchen and took a plastic envelope of breast milk out of the freezer. “Now what?” she muttered to herself. The envelope looked as if it might fit into a bottle, but where to find a bottle? She opened cabinet after cabinet and finally found a plastic column with a rubber nipple sitting beside it. She took everything to the table and sat, angry Lizzie over her shoulder. Pinning the baby with her forearm, she fumbled the milk envelope into the bottle with its top hanging over the sides, then wrestled the rubber nipple in place over all. It was trickier than the hardest cable pattern she'd ever knitted.