“Lionel disagrees,” Natalie said as she reached inside and grabbed a prescription bottle. She handed it to Liam so he could record the medication and dosage on his growing list.
“Of course he does,” Liam said, focus remaining on the pill bottle and his clipboard.
“I also walked every day and I made it a point of eating lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.” When Natalie didn’t pass along his comment, Lionel said with a glare. “Miss Chase. Please tell him what I said.”
She handed Liam the next prescription bottle and said, “He wants you to know he also walked and ate lots of vegetable.”
“And fresh fruit,” Lionel prompted.
“And fresh fruit,” she added with an eye roll.
That brought Liam’s head up but he didn’t look at her. He focused on a spot off in the corner of the room, before glancing back at his clipboard, then at the vitamins still inside the box.
Finally, Liam looked at Natalie. “Ask him if he eats bananas.”
“I love bananas,” Lionel answered. “I eat at least one every day.”
“Again, Liam. The ghosts can hear you. And yes. He eats them every day.”
“Potassium,” Liam breathed, more to himself than to them. He glanced around the room. Focusing on a spot nowhere near where Lionel stood, Liam asked, “Lionel, do you take potassium supplements?”
“No. The paperwork that comes with my two prescription pills specified not to take potassium with them. Apparently it interacts badly with the medications. And I’m over here,” Lionel said with an attitude.
“No,” Natalie relayed simply.
Liam dropped the clipboard on a nearby box and bent over, pawing through the remaining bottles inside. Finally, he emerged with one of those day-of-the-week pill cases.
Liam opened one of the compartments and dumped the pills out on top of the clipboard. Excited over something, he whipped out his cell phone and began typing on the screen.
“What’s he doing?” Lionel asked.
“No clue,” Natalie answered.
Liam sucked in a sharp breath and turned to Natalie. “We’re going to need to call the New Haven police.”
She frowned. “What? Why?”
He had to be joking, right?
But there was no humor in his expression when Liam looked at her and said, “I think Lionel was murdered.”
“Finally. Thank you!” Lionel said with his hands in the air.
“How? Why do you think that?” Natalie asked trying to wrap her head around this new turn of events.
Liam’s excitement was palpable as he explained, “There are two different high dosage potassium pills in every day of his daily pill case, but no bottles of potassium supplements in the box, and he said he wasn’t taking it. Lionel was killed by a potassium overdose. That is what caused his heart attack.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“All pills are marked with a unique code to identify them. I looked up the codes online.”
“Who could have done this?” Natalie asked, still shocked.
“Who had access to his pills? That’s your answer,” Liam said. “And that’s the murderer.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Once again Officers Pataki and Garland stood in Natalie’s shop and they didn’t look any happier than the last time they’d been there.
