“Nope,” she pulled up the wedding announcement. “Echo Englehorn, lady golfer extraordinaire, married Stringer Maxfield before she graduated.”
“Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“Because he won the PGA Masters a bazillion times,” she clucked at me. “Probably had a whole closet full of green jackets.”
“Had?”
“Yeah,” Tatiana pulled up the death certificate. “Stringer Maxfield died of selenium poisoning.”
“What?”
“Stringer was in his late 50s when he met the future Mrs. Maxfield. She was 21. He had a hard time… keeping up… if you know what I mean,” she waggled her eyebrows.
“Disgusting,” I motioned for her to continue.
“Any-hoo, Stringer’s chiropractor suggested selenium as anaturalViagara,” Tatiana gave me air quotes. “The chiropractor had this racket selling supplements at a ridiculous price. A type of pyramid thing. Problem was, the chiropractor was getting her supplements from an illegal Chinese factory. And instead of the recommended 55 micrograms a day, the supplements had 200 times that much.”
“Wow,” I scrubbed my face. “What does that mean?”
“It means it’s a painful way to go,” Tatiana responded.
“What happened to the chiropractor?”
“Lost her license,” Tatiana pulled up another screen. “Disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“No criminal charges?”
“Cops treated it like malpractice,” Tatiana huffed. “Stringer was the only one to die from it. Most people got better after a few weeks of treatment to flush the toxin out of their systems.”
“What are the symptoms?”
“Confusion, nausea, garlicky breath,” Tatiana ticked them off.
“Garlic?” I hopped up.
“What? Was that good?” Tatiana yelled at my retreating form.
I waved my hand over my shoulder as I ran to the lab. I banged open the door. Rand jumped out of his chair again.
“God damn it!” Rand cursed at me.
I chuckled. “Hey man, when you run the tests on those capsules, will you test for selenium?”
“Selenium?” Rand frowned. “That’s a pretty specific metal. But, it wouldn’t show up in a regular tox screen unless I was looking for it.”
“Somehow, I knew you’d say that.”
“How soon do you need the results?”
“I need them inGet-Your-Ass-Of-Your-Chair-and-Get-It-Done-Right-Fucking-Now.”
Rand raked his hands through his already messy hair. “Let me call Faylor and let her know I’ll be home late.”
Rand picked up his phone and stepped into his nearby office. My mind swirled as I raced through the clues of Octavio’s death.
Echo would have seen the quick demise of her first husband. Could she have kept some of those capsules to use on Octavio? Did the remainders fall into the jaws of Killer when Echo moved her shit out of the Dick and Vagina Mansion? Or did she hide the evidence in the doghouse deliberately, not giving a fuck whether the dog got into the poison or not?
I headed toward the break room. With the way things were going, I wasn’t going to get any sleep. I might as well load up on the caffeine.
It was going to be a long night.
