“Very true,” he agreed, “but you also know that I would never hit you.”
She nodded, smiled, relieved. “I do know that,” she stated brightly.
“And you’re still not getting out of telling me what happened.”
She frowned. “If you’re talking about Rutland, fine. I’m not talking about my husband.”
“Good. I don’t like that man anyway.”
She laughed. “Fine. But, as far as what’s going on right now, I met an old woman in Rutland, and we talked by the grocery store where this guy Alan worked. This guy was pretty well loved.”
Mack nodded. “Everybody deserves to be loved.”
“Isn’t that the truth, and it’s just sad that he was cut down way too early in life. But he’s the one who made a report to the police, so surely you guys have figured it out.”
“Not yet,” he noted cautiously. “Obviously we’re working on it.”
She frowned at that. “Sometimes you guys work too slow,” she announced. He just ignored her. “But I know that you’re not doing nothing.”
“Well, right now, I’m sitting here, having a cup of coffee with you,” he explained, “because we all need to catch a break sometime. We also need people to share information.”
She groaned. “Well, nobody had a whole lot to say about it. And that is a problem.”
“Sure it is,” he agreed. “Nice guy and yet he was poisoned to death. The next questions are, Who, how, what, and why?”
“And what did you find out?”
He shrugged. “Not a whole lot to find out. He was married but now divorced, although not the partying type. He had been to dinner at a friend’s house the previous night, but that wasn’t found to be the source of the poison.”
“Well, there had to be a source somewhere,” she noted in astonishment.
“Sure. There has to be. That doesn’t mean that we’re seeing where and what though.”
“Maybe not,” she agreed, frowning. “What was his relationship at work like?”
“Everybody apparently loved him,” he replied quietly, “just like your witness said.”
“And that always makes me suspicious again,” she muttered. “Maybe you need to check out the coworkers a little closer.”
“Why?”
“Opportunity,” she noted, looking over at him. “If the only constant in his life was work, then who else would have had that opportunity to administer the poison? And is it something that was administered once, or is it something that he was exposed to over time?”
“I’m waiting on forensics to come back with that.” Just then his phone buzzed. He pulled it out and rolled through something on his screen.
When a frown lit his face and darkened his features, she leaned in closer to him. “And?”
He shook his head. “No ands,” he muttered, “but definitely something to think about.”
“You need to tell me more.”
He gave her one raised eyebrow. “No, I don’t,” he bit off. “It’s the autopsy report.”
“It was rat poison – likely warfarin, wasn’t it?” she asked.
He stared at her. “How would you know?”
“I’m really struggling with the word coincidence these days,” she explained. “And it seems to me that that’s too much of a coincidence. We just saw a box of rat poison in a garden bed by the beach.”
“A long way away from where this guy lived and worked. There is no coincidence.”
“So tell me flat-out, looking me straight in the eye, that it wasn’t that what killed him.”
He lifted his head and firmly stated, “It wasn’t warfarin.” But his lips twitched and his eyes slid to the side.
“So it was rat poison,” she confirmed, even if he was being cagey with her. “You may want to go get that box,” she muttered. “Test it for fingerprints not to mention ingredients.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. She mimicked his position and glared right back. He groaned and stared up at the sky. “Fine. It was a mix of ingredients used in rat poisons, not warfarin as an isolated ingredient.”
“Cyanide?”
He shook his head. “No I don’t believe so. You need to tell me which house it was. And I’ll go talk to him.”
“Good idea.” She described the house, not far from the beach, and the address for it.
“It doesn’t mean anything though,” he cautioned.
“Maybe not,” she noted, “but I would really like to get into Alan’s apartment.”
He stared at her and shook his hand. “You know that’s not happening.”
“Well, if there’s nothing in his place to find …”
“I didn’t see anything suspicious, and I was there yesterday, and,” he added, “we looked for any kind of poison.”
“Exactly, opportunity and all that, but you need to find somebody who works at the store who lives down maybe in the Sarsons area.”
“I think we can figure that out,” he stated bluntly.
“I know. I’m just stating the obvious,” she muttered. “Sometimes it’s better to state the obvious than to get caught up and forget the simple things in life. Still, don’t you think Alan’s poisoning happening recently and Chrissy’s from a few months earlier are suspicious?”
“Chrissy?”
“She lived at Rosemoor. Always complaining about people poisoning her.”
“Right.” Mack nodded. “Died of natural causes.” He shook his head. “You focus on Chrissy.”
“Yeah, I will,” she confirmed. “Speaking of which, I have to go up to Rutland and find Cassandra.”
“Who’s she?”
“Chrissy’s daughter,” she replied succinctly. “The woman who was left out of her mother’s will. She works in a strip bar, apparently.”
“You know that we’ve seen things like that time and time again,” he noted, looking at her quietly. “Sometimes the parents can’t accept what the children do for a living.”
“Well, apparently, this Cassandra Mason—and Peter Riley, the nephew, who got the contents of the will—was also topping up her Rosemoor residential expenses and apparently is a stand-up guy,” she explained, with a shrug.
“So what? Hang on a minute. You’re telling me no murder was here?” he asked, giving her a bright grin. “No cold case to dredge up?”
She glared at him. “I don’t know if there is or not, but you know I have to deal with Nan and Richie.”
“Richie is involved?” he asked, a tone of alarm entering his voice.
She gave him a fat smile. “Yes, so looks like Darren’ll have his hands full too.”
Mack shook his head at that. “I tell you what. Things are bad enough down there with those seniors acting badly, but when those two get together?” He shook his head. “Like dealing with undisciplined teenagers.”
“And somebody named Laura is involved in their investigation too,” Doreen added, “but I don’t know to what extent.”