Dead By Midnight

just walk along a street someday and just by doing that accomplish something terribly important—perhaps without even knowing what it was.’ ”

“Good book,” Billy said mildly.

Annie nodded in agreement. “One of Christie’s best. But that’s not the point. Pat said, ‘I wouldn’t make a guy a hero who tried to commit suicide. He should have sucked up his guts, gotten on with life.’ That sure doesn’t sound like someone who’s thinking about suicide. I don’t know anything about how Pat died. But if she didn’t die from natural causes, then I think her death had to be an accident. Or murder.” She threw out the last without conviction. Who would want to kill Pat Merridew?

Billy picked up the file, found a page. “This is part of the public record now.” He slid a sheet across the desk. “You can look at the toxicology report. She died as the result of ingesting four hundred milligrams of OxyContin, which had been dissolved in Irish coffee.”

Annie scanned the sheet. The damning information was there. Four hundred milligrams. No one took four hundred milligrams of an opiate by mistake. “Did she have a prescription?” OxyContin was exceedingly strong and one of many prescription painkillers that were commonly abused.

“Not a current one. She had a prescription a year ago, but it wasn’t renewable. She fell last year, shattered her wrist, had a plate and six screws. The painkiller was prescribed then.”

“Did you find the container for the OxyContin?”

Billy nodded. “The last thing thrown in the trash. Empty. Only her fingerprints on the vial.”

Annie knew that people often didn’t use all of a prescribed med. In fact, she had a plastic vial in a kitchen cabinet that contained pills left over from a prescription she’d been given following a root canal.

Billy was calm. “No surprise she kept the stuff. People do. In any event, the dregs in her crystal coffee mug contained OxyContin. Her fingerprints were on the mug and only hers. There was no disarray in the room, no evidence anyone else had been present.” His face softened. “Look, Annie, she was distraught after she lost her job—”

Annie interrupted. “She had a new job. She didn’t skulk around acting upset. She was eager and cheerful and she did everything she could to learn as much as she could as fast as she could.”

He lifted a hand in negation. “Of course she acted positive at the store. I get your point and”—a bemused head shake—“Henny is adamant she didn’t kill herself because of her dog. Apparently the dog has special medication for a heart problem. Henny claims Pat would never have put the dog in jeopardy.” He paused. “Henny took the dog home with her. But suicides aren’t thinking straight. They’re depressed. They can’t see any hope in their lives.”

Annie was no psychologist. She couldn’t swear to Pat’s mental stability, but she remembered with clarity Pat’s disdain for the would-be suicide in Towards Zero.

“If she ground up the pills”—once Annie had read that OxyContin was even more lethal if the pills were broken or mashed—“and put them in her coffee, then you’re right, she was deeply depressed and not herself. But, Billy, if she didn’t put the drug in her coffee, someone else did.”

Billy slowly shook his head. “It doesn’t play, Annie. I know my job. I don’t take anything for granted. I checked out Pat Merridew upside down and sideways. She was kind of a live wire. She liked to play cards, go bowling.” For an instant, there was a shadow in his eyes. “She bowled the night before she died. She paid her bills. Her only relative was a sister, who lives in California. The sister was at a baseball game in Anaheim the night Pat died. Pat’s estate goes to her sister but it’s modest: the house, a bank account with three thousand dollars, some stocks amounting to about seventy-five thousand, which shows she was thrifty and prudent. Everybody I contacted spoke well of her. The only blot in a happy-days life was losing her job at the law firm. She was upset and angry with Glen Jamison and with his wife-slash-partner, Cleo. If I’d found Glen bashed over the head or a stiletto in Cleo Jamison’s back, I’d have looked at Pat Merridew. Plenty of bad feelings there. But they’re fine and Pat’s dead. So, nobody wanted Pat dead. What does that leave? Accident or suicide? No way it was an accident. Besides, OxyContin is bitter and she’d made Irish coffee. The whiskey and the sugar hid the taste and, of course, the whiskey intensified the effect of the opiate.”

He didn’t say “case closed,” but he might as well have.

Annie knew Billy had years of experience and a thorough investigation to back up his conclusion. All she had was the memory of Pat’s conclusion about the would-be suicide: He should have sucked up his guts, gotten on with his life.

Suicide or murder.

“Billy, will you do me a favor?”

He straightened the papers in the folder, flipped the cover shut. “Such as?”

“I’d like to see Pat’s house. Please.” Maybe there would be something there that would bolster her argument.

Billy’s mouth turned down in a wry half smile. “I swear to God, when a woman gets an idea in her head . . .” But his voice was genial. His big shoulders rose and fell. “Henny’s handling everything for the sister. I was going to turn the keys over to her. I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm to meet her at the house. There may be some things she wants to take care of.”

Annie easily pictured Pat Merridew in the small, cheerful living room. White flowers with yellow centers formed bouquets in light blue wallpaper. Pale yellow drapes were drawn at two side windows and the wide front window. A braided oval rug lay smooth in the center of the wooden floor. Not a trace of dust marred the room.

Henny pointed at the chintz-covered chair on one side of the coffee table. “Pat was there.” A faint frown. “The chair is out of line. She kept the chairs turned the same way next to the coffee table.”

Billy took a step forward. “Probably the techs moved the chair when they came for the body.”

“Everything seems to be in order.” Henny sounded weary. Then her head came up and she gave Billy a combative look. “Pat did not commit suicide.”

Annie looked at the coffee table. “The drug was in her coffee.”

Billy was brisk. “Found in the dregs in a ten-ounce crystal coffee mug. The coffee in a carafe was free of drugs.”