J. Robb - Innocent In Death

Cicely walked to the bathroom door, rapped lightly. “Mignon, the police are here. The lieutenant and detective. She’ll only be a moment,” she told Eve. “I’ll make the coffee now.”

Lissette came out in loose pants and a sweatshirt with thick socks on her feet. She looked like a woman who was suffering from a long illness. Her color had gone pasty, her eyes were dull and swollen. She moved as if her bones hurt.

“You know something more?” Her voice was like rusted metal. “Something about Craig?”

Eve got to her feet. “Have a seat, Mrs. Foster.”

“I went to see him. We went to see him. His parents and I went to that place. It wasn’t a mistake. You said it wasn’t. It broke them to pieces. His mom and dad, it broke them to pieces. What will I do now?” As if suddenly aware of her surroundings, she looked around the little apartment. “What will I do? Maman.”

“There, my baby. Sit now.” Cicely came back, eased Lissette into a chair. “Please, can’t you tell us something? Anything? It’s so hard not knowing why, or how.”

Eve looked into Lissette’s eyes. “Your husband was killed when he ingested a lethal amount of ricin.”

“Ingested? Ate? Ricin? What is it?”

“It’s poison,” Cicely murmured and her eyes were huge now, horrified now. “I know this. This is poison.”

“Poison? But why would he…how did he…”

“It was in the hot chocolate,” Eve told Lissette and watched the woman go gray.

“No. No. No. That’s not right. I made it for him. I made it myself. Every morning once the weather gets cold. And when it warms again, I make him sweet cold tea. Every day. You think I hurt Craig? You think I-”

“No, I don’t.” After more than eleven years on the job, Eve knew when to trust her gut. “But in order to clear you so that we can pursue other avenues, we’d like to look around the apartment. We’d like your permission to search it, to go through your husband’s computer, his work, his personal items.”

“Wait. Please.” Lissette gripped her mother’s hand. “You said poison. You said Craig was poisoned. How could he have taken poison by mistake?”

“They don’t think it was a mistake,” Cicely said. “Do you?”

“No.”

“But then…” Color came back into Lissette’s face, dull and red as she slowly rose to her feet. “Deliberately? Someone did this to him? For what? He hurt no one, ever. Not ever.”

“Mrs. Foster, we believe ricin was added to your husband’s drink at some point on the morning he died.”

“ButI made the drink. I made it.” She rushed over to the little kitchen area. “Here, right here. Every morning I make his lunch because it pleases him so much. It takes only a few minutes, and it pleases him so much, I…”

Cicely murmured in French as she went to her daughter.

“No, no, no. I made it just like every morning. The sandwich, the fruit, the chips he likes. And I made the chocolate like you taught me, Maman. He loves it. Right here, right here.” She spread her hands. “I made the chocolate.”

“Lissy.” Cicely laid her hands on her daughter’s damp cheeks. “Don’t do this.”

“Lissette, did you make the drink in a black insulated thermos?”

“Yes, yes.” Lissette leaned against her mother. “The jumbo-sized go-cup. With his name on it. I gave it to him when he started at the school, a little gift, and the black lunch bag.”

“This is what he’d normally carry to school?”

“Every day, yes. Every day. What difference does it make?”

“It’s just details,” Eve said easily. “We’re investigating both how and why this was done, so details matter. We’d like to look through your apartment.”

“Why?” Lissette stared down at her hands. “Why would anyone hurt Craig?”

“I don’t have answers for you at this time.”

“You want to look through our things because it will help you find the answers?”

“Yes.”

“Look at anything, at everything. He has more at the school. On his computer there, in his desk there. Do whatever you need to do. I don’t want to watch. I don’t want to watch while you go through our things. Can we go out?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Maman, we’ll go out, and let them…Maman, someone killed Craig. Maman. ”

Eve stood back as the mother comforted the daughter, as she helped the grieving widow into boots, coat, scarf.

“I’ll take her to breakfast,” Cicely told Eve. “There’s a place down the street. We’ll be there if you need us.”

“Thank you.” Eve waited until the door shut behind them. “Took the same cup every day.”

“Fits his MO,” Peabody said. “Routine.”

“Yeah, so he not only habitually drank the same thing every day, but out of the same thermos. Used that same thermos for over a year. Maybe, for efficiency’s sake, the killer bought a dupe, just switched the cups.”

“We can run the make and model, retail outlets.”

“Yeah, we can. Let’s do the room first. Let’s go to work, Peabody.”

THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE APARTMENT THAT spoke of murder. No poisons hidden away in secret compartments, no threatening correspondence or incriminating photographs.

There was, as far as Eve could see-as far as she couldfeel -only the lives of two everyday people whose marriage had still been shiny and new.

The shared work area held his professional debris, and hers, as well as silly, sexy e-mails they sent to each other. Signs, Eve thought, of that first rush of love and belonging where nothing was more important or immediate as the two of you. There were ’link transmissions to and from Lissy and her mother, one from Mirri Hallywell who’d talked to both the Fosters-confirming a study date with Craig and chatting with Lissy about a date with someone called Ben.

The night before he died, Craig Foster had outlined the pop quiz he would never spring on his students, and had put nearly an hour into a paper on the economic and social developments post-Urban Wars.

The screen saver on the comp unit was a wedding portrait-Lissette in flowing white, Craig in formal black, sharing what Eve assumed was their first kiss as husband and wife.

“It’s a tough one,” Peabody commented when they were back in their vehicle. “Looking around that place, everything’s new. Everything was just getting started. Now it’s done. The good wine glasses-had to be a wedding gift-barely used. Matching towels and shower curtain, dried flowers from her wedding bouquet, the disc of the ceremony and party. It’s tough.”

“It’s tougher because nothing in there pointed to motive. They don’t have money, they don’t use illegals, the probability of either of them having an affair at this stage is next to zip. So what was his secret?”

“His secret?”

“People have them. Little pockets they keep to themselves. Things a man wouldn’t share with his wife.”

Frowning, Peabody shook her head. “At their stage, and from the vibe, I don’t see them keeping secrets.”

“That’s what makes them secret,” Eve muttered, and hunted up parking near the school.

Inside, they passed through security, waited to be cleared. She saw a couple of staff members crossing the main hall. Each wore a black armband. “Let’s go over the timing and movements. If the ricin didn’t come from home, it came from here.”

Peabody pulled out her memo book. “Vic signed in at six-forty-two. His wife’s statement has him leaving the apartment about six-thirty.”

“He walked. Find an apartment close to work so you can walk and save transpo costs. It would take seven, eight minutes to walk it, so it’s unlikely he made any stops on the way. Nothing open at that hour on the route. Closest twenty-four/seven is three blocks west.”