“That’s our victim?” Erin asked.
“We’ll see in a minute,” Webb said. “Dispatch just told me we had a sudden death.”
“Must’ve been suspicious for them to call in Major Crimes right away,” Vic said.
“Either that, or they heard you were bored,” Webb said.
The waiting room was populated by two patients, an oral hygienist, and a secretary. The hygienist was sniffling into a tissue. One patient was a young man, college age, who was leafing through a back issue of People Magazine. The other was a thirtysomething businesswoman who looked pissed off.
“Excuse me,” the businesswoman said, standing up. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’ve been waiting here almost forty-five minutes. This is totally unacceptable.”
“I’m Lieutenant Webb,” Webb said. “Major Crimes. We’ll need a statement from you, but I hope you won’t be inconvenienced much longer.”
The woman made an exasperated sound in her nose. “I don’t see how this day could possibly get any worse.”
“You could’ve been the victim instead of a witness,” Vic offered. “That’d probably be worse.”
She glared at him. He gave her his best meeting-the-public smile.
“The victim’s in his office,” the cop at the door offered, pointing past the front desk.
Erin steered Rolf past the bystanders to the office. She’d been a cop almost twelve years. She’d responded to calls for gruesome traffic accidents, homicides, suicides, and bodies that had been dead for days by the time they were reported. Her last big, dramatic case had featured a victim literally sawed in half. She was ready for anything.
It was an anticlimax. The victim was sprawled on a leather couch against his office wall. He didn’t have a mark on him. His lips were tinged blue, and there were flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth, but otherwise, he didn’t look half bad. There was one odd thing about the body, however.
“Where’s his clothes?” she asked aloud.
“The paramedics reported the body was this way when they arrived,” a woman said. She was kneeling beside the naked corpse, dressed in a white lab coat and disposable gloves.
“Hi, Levine,” Erin said, recognizing the medical examiner for their precinct. “You got here fast.”
“Not particularly,” Sarah Levine said. “I considered the cause of death potentially suspicious.”
“That’s why they called us,” Vic said, coming up behind Erin. “Hey, doc. He’s dead, but I bet his teeth are in fantastic condition.”
Levine blinked. “I haven’t examined his dentition,” she said. “When there’s no question of positive identification of the victim, it’s not a priority.”
“You have a preliminary COD?” Webb asked, moving past his detectives into the room.
“Discoloration of the lips and fingernails,” Levine said. “Cyanosis, typical of asphyxia. I don’t see evidence of an independent cardiac event. The lack of ligature marks on the throat indicates a probable chemical cause. The most likely agent is cyanide.”
Erin glanced around the room. She saw a desk with a computer on it, an office chair behind the desk, and a coffee table. On the table was an open candy box.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she murmured.
Webb and Vic followed her look. “I wouldn’t eat those,” Webb said. “I’m guessing they might kill you.”
“And give you cavities,” Vic added.
Levine leaned forward and carefully parted the corpse’s lips with a pair of gloved fingers. “Trace amounts of a brown substance between the canines and lodged in the molars,” she announced. “This supports the hypothesis of toxic candy.”
“I told you to check the teeth,” Vic said triumphantly.
“So,” Erin said. “Who was in here with him?”
“Maybe he liked eating chocolate alone,” Vic said.
“Naked?” Webb asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Hey, this is New York City,” Vic said. “We got all types here.”
“Given the options in the waiting room,” Erin said, “I’m guessing the oral hygienist.”
“Not the skirt with the bad attitude?” Webb asked.
“I’m thinking the one who’s crying is more likely,” she replied.
He sighed. “Okay, we better talk to her.” Talking to family and friends of victims was part of the Job, but no cop liked doing it.
* * *
They didn’t want to take statements in the dental office with the dead guy, or in front of the other witnesses, so they ended up using one of the examining rooms. Erin thought it was a little weird to be interviewing a person of interest who was sitting in a dental chair, but it was hardly the strangest thing she’d done in her time with the NYPD.
The hygienist, a pretty blonde named Amber Hayward, carried a crumpled tissue in one hand. She kept dabbing at her eyes with it. Her mascara was running.
“Miss Hayward,” Webb said, “can you tell us what happened?”
“I came in to work,” Amber said. “Well, I had breakfast before that. And before that, I put on my makeup. And my clothes. And got out of bed. I guess I woke up first.”
“Take your time,” Webb said.
“The first appointment was at nine,” she went on. “That was Mr. Pavlicek, with his root canal. It was the number nineteen molar. Doctor Ridgeway decided to do a standard procedure, with…”
Webb held up a hand. “I don’t think we need the details of the procedure,” he said. “Maybe you could skip ahead a little.”
Amber nodded. “After Mr. Pavlicek, we had three more appointments. Teddy Coogan, extraction of a dead baby tooth, that was tooth 5D. Then Paul Dexter, impacted wisdom tooth, number sixteen. And Lori Smithers, routine exam and cleaning, just before lunch.”
“Does anyone else work in the office?” Webb asked.
“Nelda Booker, our other hygienist,” Amber said. “And Della Ackerman, our secretary.”
“Where’s Nelda?” Vic asked.
“Out to lunch,” Amber said. “She’ll be back any minute. Oh God, what am I going to tell her?” She blew her nose loudly.
“What happened at lunchtime?” Webb asked.
“We had an hour and a half blocked out on the schedule,” she said. “Nelda went to meet her mom. Mrs. Booker works for a Wall Street firm. They have lunch together once a week. Norm… Doctor Ridgeway, I mean… he said we’d have time to eat… later.”
“Miss Hayward,”
