d-”
He hung up, leaving me staring at the disconnected phone. “Well!”
Tav gave me a quizzical look. “No success with your favorite police detective?”
“You’d think he’d be grateful for a little citizen involvement,” I said, flouncing back to my chair. It’s easier to flounce in a satin ball gown than in, say, a pair of jeans. “The police are always asking people to get more involved, to join neighborhood watches and all that.”
“Ungrateful. That is what they are.” The corners of his mouth dented in, in a way that told me he was holding back a smile.
“You’re laughing at me!”
“Never.” He shook his head unconvincingly.
“I’ve got to help Maurice.” I was prepared to get mad at Tav if he objected.
“Of course you do,” he agreed. “It is one of the things I most appreciate about you-your loyalty to your friends.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Appreciate” didn’t light me up as a verb choice-I’d have preferred “like” or “find attractive”-but I felt a warm glow nonetheless.
A managing mother-of-the-bride type sailed up just then, hapless daughter in tow, so we turned back to the business of convincing people that ballroom dance could change their lives. Or, at the very least, that it would impress the heck out of their friends and family when they performed a graceful waltz or foxtrot at their wedding reception.
Chapter 14
Late afternoon found me trapped in traffic on I-66, trying to drive into Crystal City, where Phineas Drake had his offices, to get to the meeting Maurice had asked me to attend. I’d planned on zipping home to change first, reckoning that traffic going toward the city should flow pretty well on a Friday afternoon, but an accident had snarled things up, and I didn’t have time to go home after leaving Tav to man the fort at the bridal fair.
As a result, I walked into Drake’s conference room twenty minutes late, traffic-frazzled, wearing the orange gown. I attracted quite a few stares and whispered comments as I crossed the marble-floored lobby and rode the elevator to the twenty-sixth floor. When the elevator door opened on the offices of Drake and Stoudemire, the hum of conversation, phones ringing, and keyboards clicking, muffled by plush carpeting, told me plenty of lawyers were still at work at past six on a Friday. Drake’s well-trained receptionist didn’t blink an eye at my attire, merely leading me to the small conference room with a wall of glass looking over the Potomac and into D.C. I didn’t feel quite so out of place when Drake rose to greet me and I saw he was wearing a tuxedo, complete with tartan bow tie and cummerbund.
“I see you got the memo about formal wear for this meeting,” he greeted me, smiling behind his mustache and bushy brown beard streaked with silver. He looked more like a modern-day fur trapper or logger than a lawyer. He had a barrel chest and a rounded stomach, and his hand completely swallowed mine when we shook. “I don’t suppose you’re going to the bar association gala this evening?”
I laughed. “No, just coming from a bridal fair.”
Drake’s brows soared. “Should I wish you happy?”
“Heavens, no. Graysin Motion bought space at the convention to entice brides and grooms to learn to dance before their big day.”
“I don’t know why we didn’t think of doing that sooner,” Maurice said. He was on the far side of the table, back to the windows, and wore his usual navy blazer and crisp shirt. He gave me a welcoming smile, although he looked tenser than usual.
“Tav has some good promotional ideas. Where’s your daughter?” I asked Phineas Drake as we sat. My orange skirt billowed around me and I smoothed it down. “I thought she was handling Maurice’s case.”
“We’ll be working on it together,” Drake said. “She’s flying to Bermuda as we speak, a working flight with one of our corporate clients. Now.” His tone turned businesslike. “I’ve counseled Maurice that it’s not in his best interest to have you here. I recommend against it.”
I must have looked hurt, because he continued. “You’re not subject to privilege. You can be compelled to testify.”
“Since I don’t plan to admit to killing Rinny, it’s not going to be a problem,” Maurice said. “I want Stacy here.”
“Very well.” Drake opened a folder that lay on the gleaming wood table in front of him. “Before you arrived, Stacy, I was telling Maurice that I got a copy of the autopsy report this afternoon. It seems Ms. Blakely died from a myocardial infarction.” He paused.
“A heart attack?” I looked from Drake to Maurice, confused. “Then why…?”
Drake looked pleased, as if I’d come up with the response he was looking for. “Not so fast. The MI was caused by an overdose of epinephrine, apparently ingested in a capsule that was supposed to contain Ms. Blakely’s heart medication. Epinephrine raises blood pressure and increases heart rate, which triggered the heart attack.”
“Rinny took a pill soon after I arrived at the restaurant,” Maurice said, leaning forward with his forearms on the table. “She had a minor heart attack four years ago and has been on medication since. She dropped the bottle and it rolled under the table. I crawled under there to get it for her.”
“An excellent way to account for your fingerprints on the pill bottle,” Drake said, nodding approvingly. “We’ll find someone on the restaurant staff who remembers seeing you retrieve the bottle.” He made a note.
Maurice continued, as if he were thinking aloud. “If the epinephrine was in the capsule, it proves I couldn’t have killed her. I never left the table after I arrived; I didn’t have the opportunity to doctor the capsules.” Relief softened the tightness in his jaw.
“Not so fast,” Drake said, raising a cautionary finger. “You were at Ms. Blakely’s house last Thursday, you said. Did you have access to the medicine cabinet at that time?”
Maurice’s silence answered for him.
“On top of that, the police have a record of you buying an epinephrine-based product at the Walgreens nearest your house two weeks ago. Not enough to start your own meth lab, which is, of course, why you can’t buy those meds now without signing for them, but certainly enough to send Ms. Blakely’s ticker into overdrive.” His look invited Maurice to explain.
“I had a cold! I bought some decongestants.”
“He did have a cold,” I said, remembering a sniffling Maurice. I’d sent him home from one class so he could rest.
“The police are testing all the capsules in Mrs. Blakely’s bottle,” Drake continued, “to see if any others were tampered with. I guess that will tell us how quickly someone wanted her dead.”
“It sounds like a pretty iffy way of killing someone,” I said. “What if she didn’t take the doctored pill? What if she noticed that someone had tampered with it?”
“Perhaps the killer didn’t have a specific time line,” Drake suggested. “He or she could afford to wait until Ms. Blakely ingested the poisoned pill. And who looks at their pills before they take them? I take a handful each morning-blood pressure, cholesterol-and I certainly don’t examine them. I spill ’em out and pop ’em in.” He mimed dumping pills in his hand and tossing them in his mouth. “At any rate, our job’s to prove that Maurice here didn’t do it, and the killer’s made that an easier task for us.”
“How so?” asked Maurice.
“Anyone with access to Ms. Blakely’s house during the time period since she last refilled her prescription- hopefully a month or so ago-could conceivably have put the epinephrine in the capsule. The DA will have a much harder time of hanging this on you,” he said with grim satisfaction, “with such a large window of opportunity for, I imagine, a healthy number of folks.”
“What about Turner?” I asked. “Her grandson. He lives at her house now, and he’s going to inherit everything, right?”
