Jo sank into my chair opposite Heathcliff. “I’m guessing you told the Scooby Doo gang here about the arsenic?” she asked. I nodded. “That’s fine. I expected you to, but nothing I say leaves this room, right?”
We all nodded vigorously, diving into the hot food. I tore off a piece of fish for Grimalkin, who ate it with gusto, spreading bits of fish through the carpet fibers. Heathcliff placed a bookmark into his book and set it aside.
Jo turned to Quoth and I. “Hayes isn’t looking seriously at either of you as suspects. He is digging into Heathcliff’s background, but I think that’s racial profiling more than any serious belief in his guilt. All the witnesses reported he was nowhere near the crime scene.”
I glanced at Morrie in concern. Would his fake background documentation for Heathcliff stand up to police scrutiny? But Morrie seemed unperturbed. “Maybe if our resident anti-hero had a better customer service manner, he wouldn’t find himself top of the suspect list.”
Heathcliff growled. Jo leaned over and patted his arm. “I’d be the same if I had to deal with the living all day. They’ll cross you off the suspect list as soon as they determine you barely knew Gladys Scarlett. This type of poisoning isvicious. The murderer is going to be someone who knew the victim.”
“Poor Greta at the bakery is absolutely distraught,” I said. “She thinks she’s going to get a reputation for selling poisoned pastries and no one will buy from her again.”
“Well, she can relax,” Jo smiled, draping her boots over the arm of the chair. “I had the toxicology results back today. This was chronic arsenic poisoning, which changes everything.”
Morrie’s ears perked up. “Fascinating.”
I leaned forward. “What do you mean by chronic poisoning?”
“There are two ways to kill a person with arsenic,” Jo explained. “The first is with a single, lethal dose. That’s how we assumed Mrs. Scarlett was dispatched, because that’s what we’d normally expect to see in a modern arsenic case. But that wasn’t true here. She was given continued smaller doses over a period of weeks or months. Over time the victims of chronic arsenic poisoning would experience nausea, headaches, vomiting, and other issues, until eventually the organs shut down.”
“Mrs. Ellis said Gladys had been poorly for a while, with dizziness and stomach upsets,” I remembered.
“Exactly. Mrs. Scarlett’s doctor wouldn’t have thought to look for arsenic, so he probably just assumed it was the normal kind of upsets older people experience regularly. Unfortunately, this means we can’t narrow our suspect pool down to just the ladies at the Banned Book Club. Right now, anyone could have been the murderer. They would have to be close enough to her to administer a regular dose, so Inspector Hayes will focus his efforts on her family and friends.”
“That’s going to be a lot of people. According to Mrs. Ellis she was on every committee in the village!”
“Lucky for him, that’s his job.” Jo sipped her wine. “Plus, hardly anyone has access to arsenic these days, so it’s going to be easy to narrow the suspect pool.”
“What’s arsenic used for?” Quoth managed to ask, his brush poised in midair.
“Certain manufacturing and agricultural processes. Insecticides and pesticides. Wood preservation. One arsenic compound is used in laser diodes and LED lights.”
“The Lachlans own a property development company, so they could probably get access to manufacturers who use arsenic,” I said, turning this information over in my mind. “And Mrs. Lachlan would have ample opportunity to slip Mrs. Scarlett poison in all those planning meetings and village events.”
“I believe she’s been treated as a suspect, but there are other factors to consider. After all, arsenic could also be made in a lab if you knew what you were doing. The actual compound used as poison is called arsenic trioxide, and it—” Jo stopped. “Sorry, I was about to get terribly boring.”
“I disagree,” Morrie said. “Tell me more about how to make deadly poisons.”
I glared at him across the room, but his face remained angelic.
“You and I can discuss chemistry later,” Jo downed her glass and bit into a piece of fish while Grimalkin eyed her with wide-eyed jealousy. “I’m off the clock, so I want to know who’s seen anything good on the telly?”
“We don’t have a television,” Morrie said. “Heathcliff doesn’t approve of the noise.”
“People need to read more books,” Heathcliff growled.
“If you think that, why do you snap at every customer that comes in the door?”
“I don’t want them to readmybooks.”
“Meow,” Grimalkin agreed, settling her head on top of her paws.
“Okay, so no one wants to dissect the latestAmerican Horror Storyseries with me, that’s fine. Anyone up to anything interesting over the weekend?” Jo asked, looking pointedly at Heathcliff. I glared at her.What’s she doing?
“No.” Heathcliff growled.
“You aren’t going on a date with Mina?”
Heathcliff grunted, but didn’t answer. Beside me, Quoth itched his neck. A black feather floated into my lap.
