No one answered, so he smiled and leaned toward die portable bar, mixing gin and vermouth, slowly. Picking an olive out of a silver dish, he dropped it into the drink, watched it bobble, and sat back down. Taking a small sip, he ran his tongue over his lips, the picture of contentment.
'Damn you, Horace,' croaked Dwight. 'Why the hell - '
'Oh, shut up,' said Souza. 'You're being tiresome.'
'The why is fairly mundane,' said Milo. 'Money, power, the usual stuff. 'It's the how that tripped us up. Until we found out about Mrs. Cadmus's special talents with drugs.'
A fresh wave of horror swept over Dwight's face. He
stared across the table at his wife, begging for denial. Instead, she lowered the veil and shot him a defiant look of cold disdain.
'When did you first get the idea?' Milo asked her. She ignored him, and he continued:
'The way I see it is you've hated Jamey for a long time. Been fantasising about getting rid of him. When Souza told you about Chancellor's little squeeze, the two of you decided the time had come to go ahead with it.'
Heather's mouth began to tremble, and she seemed about to say something. Then Souza cleared his throat, and she turned toward him. The look that passed between them renewed her resistance, and her eyes narrowed and hardened, darkening to the colour of storm clouds. Sitting taller, she met Milo's gaze unflinchingly, looking through him as if he didn't exist. The entire exchange had taken a second, but Dwight hadn't missed it. He made a low, choking sound and sagged in his chair.
'Talk about your two birds,' said Milo. 'You probably considered killing both of them outright but decided it might look too cute, maybe cause us to snoop around the family fortune. Not to mention probate court and inheritance tax. But murdering Chancellor and setting up Jamey as a psycho killer would have given Hubby access to the money without any of those hassles. A year later Jamey could die in jail or on the back ward of some hospital; at that point it wouldn't really make a difference. Couple of years later Hubby could meet with an unfortunate accident - maybe even go crazy and kill himself, 'cause that kind of thing runs in the family, doesn't it? Leaving you with all of it.'
Heather laughed scornfully. Souza said, 'Ridiculous.'
Milo nodded at me.
'If anyone knew how to drive someone crazy, you did,' I told her, and gave a summary of her thesis research. She seemed unaffected by the recitation. But from the numb, sick look on Dwight's face, it was clear that he'd never taken the time to learn about his wife's scholarly efforts, had never seen her as other than the dutiful helpmate.
'You did it subtly,' I said. 'Poisoned him slowly over a one-year period with belladonna clones, slipping the drugs into his food, his milk, his mouthwash, his toothpaste. Gradually elevating the dosages. Your knowledge of organic anticholinergics enabled you to pick drugs and mix them to evoke exactly the type of symptom you wanted -agitation one day, depression the next. Paranoia, auditory hallucinations, visual scrambling, stupor - you'd learned how to create all of them from the Indians in the jungle. And if you wanted something different, there was always the occasional chaser of a synthetic agent - LSD, PCP, amphetamine. Volunteering at the drug rehab centre gave you access to street drugs. The police have found two kids -so far - who've admitted selling to you.'
She blinked rapidly. Said nothing.
'Oh, God,' said Dwight. Cash watched him carefully.
'Jamey's psychological history made things easy for you,' I continued. 'He'd never been well adjusted, so no one would be surprised when he went off the deep end. You took him to the point of severe psychosis and had him committed. Canyon Oaks was chosen because Souza knew Mainwaring could be manipulated with money. And you lost no time taking advantage of that. Marthe Surtees was brought in as a private-duty nurse, and she took over the poisoning - at your discretion. Meanwhile, Mainwaring was treating what he thought was schizophrenia with phenothiazines, which, when combined with the anticholinergics, toxified Jamey's nervous system further. Surtees says she gave you a daily report on his status. When things got too severe, you had her back off. When he started looking better, he got another jolt. Even his arrest and incarceration in the High Power block didn't put an end to it. Surtees had to bow out, but someone else took over. Someone who had a valid reason to visit him frequently. Someone who could sit with him for extended periods of time without attracting undue attention. Put a fatherly arm around his shoulder, give-him sips of juice. Someone who was supposed to be his advocate.'
I glared at Souza.
'Absurd,' he said. 'Wild speculation.' Heather nodded in agreement but distractedly, as if performing by rote.
'The two of you are quite a pair,' I said, focusing on Souza. 'While she worked on Jamey, you had Antrim commit the Lavender Slashings. Those seven boys were human sacrifices, picked at random, dumped like garbage. They died so that you could set up Chancellor and Jamey as sex killers, make Chancellor's death look like a party gone bad. Every detail was planned and premeditated. The bodies were dumped in a westerly pattern that reversed itself when Chancellor was killed - to make it appear as if the chain had been broken. The slashings took place on Thursday because Chancellor had to be murdered on Thursday - the night his bodyguard was off. You even provided a garrote which would incriminate Jamey: strips cut from Heather's lavender gown, which she took pains to tell me he'd stolen. Everything was going as planned until Jamey managed to knock out Surtees and call me.
'Dr. Delaware' - Souza sneered - 'you flatter yourself with too much self-importance.'
'Not really,' I said. 'I know I was nothing but another pawn. You knew I'd been Jamey's therapist, had been told he spoke highly of me, and you weren't sure if he'd blurted out anything important that night. So you decided to co-opt me. You even used those very words - 'I want to co-opt you, Doctor' - playing with me. Because that's your view of life, a game. One big tournament with expandable players. Once I'd agreed to join your team, you made a point of emphasising that anything I learned would be confidential, ostensibly to protect Jamey but really to protect yourself.'
'I simply reminded you of well-established ethical principles,' said Souza. 'Principles that you've violated egregiously.'
'You strung me along,' I continued, 'until you were sure I knew nothing incriminating. Then you fired me. Funny thing is, by hiring me, you bought yourself some new trouble - Erno Radovic.'
Mention of the bodyguard's name caused Dwight's eyes to widen. Cash peered down at him watchfully.
'We'll never know why Radovic decided to poke around,' I said. 'Maybe it was loyalty to his boss. More likely he'd overheard Jamey and Chancellor talking about Bitter Canyon, suspected it might have something to do with Chancellor's murder, and decided to learn enough to put on a squeeze of his own. He might even have known about the diary, looked for it, but couldn't find it. When you hired me, he did a background check, found out I'd been Jamey's psychotherapist, and suspected the same thing you had: that I'd been privy to secret information. So he started following me, and I led him - unwittingly - to the diary. When he read it, he realised he was on to something big and called Dwight, demanding cash and letting him know he meant business by having the payoff take place on the road to Bitter Canyon. Dwight called you, and you dispatched Antrim and Surtees to take care of business.'
'That's conspiracy to commit murder,' Milo told Dwight, who avoided scrutiny by covering his face with his hands. 'What'd you think when you found out Radovic had been gutted, Dwight? Another bit of good luck?'
No answer.
The silence stretched like taffy. Souza snapped it.
'Sergeant,' he said, putting down his martini, 'it's been intriguing. Are we free to go now?'
'Go?'
'Exit. Leave. Fulfill our social obligations.'
Milo concealed his incredulity behind an angry laugh.
'That's all you have to say?'
'Surely,' said the attorney, 'you don't expect me to take any of this seriously?'
'Not impressed, huh?'
'Hardly. You march in here with your paraphernalia and your battalion and present a loosely connected pastiche of ramblings, hypotheses, and wild speculation, the kind of case for which I could obtain a dismissal during prelims.'
'I see,' said Milo, and he read him his rights.
Souza listened, nodding approvingly, like a schoolmaster
