“Some of the locals filled me in. He was a troubled teenager.”
“Weren’t we all?”
“He more than most.”
Even though Tariq himself had told her about his larcenous joyride, his past was something she found hard to square with her friend, the nerdy-cool marine biologist. She cast her mind back to graduate school, when he was closer to his teenage years. Even then, though, he had always seemed so calm, so steady.
“You’re going to leave me hanging?” Harper said. “What are you referring to?”
“Wouldn’t want to cast aspersions.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?”
He shrugged. “I read your article about being buried alive.”
“Really? I’m surprised.” First Joel, and now the detective. It occurred to Harper that she may have inadvertently upped the readership of her obscure historical articles simply by being in the vicinity of a terrible crime.
“Not a lot of detectives reading scholarly journals?” Serrano asked.
“I wouldn’t think so, but then again, you’re the only detective I’ve ever spoken to,” Harper said. “Were you looking for something specific?”
He gave a half nod, half shrug. “Just trying to get a handle on things. Your article paralleled what happened to Mason, in a way.”
“As in, maybe I wrote about it, and then tried my hand at it?”
“Weirder things have happened. You hear about that romance novelist who wrote an article on how to kill a husband, then killed her husband?”
“I remember reading something about that. So what did you glean from my article?”
“Mostly that you have an impressive vocabulary. And you like footnotes. Anyway, I understand you’re not only an expert on witchcraft and being buried alive, but also on poisons?”
“Is that relevant? I thought Delilah Mason was stabbed. And, of course, buried.”
“Where’d you hear about the stabbing?”
“Um…” She shrugged. “Around? I think it might have been in the papers…”
He nodded. “She was stabbed. And now I’m asking if you’re an expert on poisons.”
“I think you need to speak with a toxicologist, not a historian.”
“Look, Professor, it’ll speed things along if you’ll just answer my questions,” he said, finally taking a seat.
“Sorry.” Harper tried to calm her fluttering heart. In the movies people always seemed so calm when speaking to the police. But even though she had not done anything wrong, the detective made her nervous. She could only imagine how she would present herself if she actually were guilty of something. Probably immediately spill her guts, allowing the police to close the case in record time. Good thing she had not considered embarking on a life of crime. “I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but yes, poisons are sort of an academic sideline of mine.”
“That’s an unusual sideline.”
“Not really. In the past many of the so-called witches were healers familiar with the medicinal properties of plants, which they used to brew medicine for sick people. That requires knowledge and skill because most medicines are poisonous if not prepared properly or given in the wrong dose. Paracelsus famously wrote that ‘the dose makes the poison.’ ”
“Who’s Para-celsius?” The detective stumbled over the pronunciation.
“Paracelsus. A very smart Swiss fellow. Lived and wrote a long time ago. He coined the famous dictum,Quid hoc non est venenum? Omnia venena sunt, nihilque sine veneno est. Solus dose determinat rem non esse venenum.”
“I’m flattered you assume I speak Latin. Care to translate?”
“ ‘What is there that is not poison? All things are poison, and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison.’ ”
“Huh.”
