“Yes,” Levine said. She picked up a folder and flipped it open. “Norman Ridgeway, age thirty-six. Male, Caucasian, seventy-two inches in height, weight one-ninety. Cause of death, cardiac arrest as a direct result of acute cyanide poisoning. I didn’t need to do a full blood workup. Cyanide presents with obvious symptoms. The poison was ingested shortly before death.”
“Was it the candy?” Erin asked.
“I’ve confirmed through stomach contents and dentition that the victim ingested at least one piece of chocolate at approximately the time of death,” Levine said. “The absence of other food particles in the teeth suggests the chocolate was the medium by which the poison was introduced. Additionally, I tested the remaining chocolates in the assortment. One uneaten piece also tested positive for a lethal dosage of cyanide. Almond nougat, according to the label on the packaging.”
“So, it’s officially a homicide?”
Levine nodded. “Correct. Unless the victim knew the chocolates were poisoned, in which case it would be suicide, either assisted or solo.”
“Anything else the autopsy told you?” Erin asked.
“The mouth swab turned up trace amounts of lipstick, coral pink in color. The same color of lipstick turns up in trace amounts elsewhere on the body, particularly on the—”
“I get the picture,” Erin said quickly. She didn’t need that image, especially with Ridgeways corpse lying right there beside them.
“The lipstick suggested that I could probably retrieve usable DNA from both the mouth swab and all other points of contact,” Levine went on.
Erin nodded. Amber Hayward had been wearing coral pink lipstick, and it had looked a little smudged. “Is that it?” she asked.
“The victim was sexually active within the twenty-four hours preceding death.”
“No shit,” Erin said. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I’m referring to a prior encounter,” Levine said. “I found some trace fluids. He’d showered between encounters, but some evidence was left behind.”
“With the same woman?”
Levine shrugged. “I’ll know when we run a DNA cross. If we had blood samples, we could compare blood types more quickly, but the encounter appears to have been insufficiently forceful to result in blood loss to either party. The DNA will be three months’ turnaround, given the current lab backlog.”
Erin wrinkled her nose at the other woman. “So, you’re saying it’s a bad thing he didn’t like it rough?”
The Medical Examiner shrugged again. “The more violent the encounter, the more forensic evidence is likely to remain.”
“It might be better not to describe it that way to the Lieutenant, if he ever comes down here.”
“Voltaire said, ‘To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.’” Levine paused. “Of course, he said it in French.”
Erin was startled. “You’ve read Voltaire?”
“Only the stuff he wrote about death.”
* * *
Erin gladly retreated from the formaldehyde stench of Levine’s laboratory, back to the Major Crimes office. Webb had gotten there while she’d been downstairs. He was frowning at their whiteboard, a cup of coffee in one hand, his customary unlit cigarette in the other.
“We need to know what Ridgeway was doing before he died,” Erin said by way of greeting. “And who he was doing it with. I think we might have another suspect.”
Webb raised his eyebrows. “Do tell.”
“He was getting it on with the hygienist when he died,” she said.
“Yeah, we know.”
“According to Levine, he was doing something similar within the past day.”
“The hygienist again?”
“Maybe. But she thinks maybe not.”
Webb nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, we need to make sure. Get in touch with the Hayward girl, find out if she was the partner. If not, then we need to know who else was in the picture. If there’s another girlfriend, and she’s the jealous type, maybe she figured a way to poison him. Hell, maybe she thought she’d take out him and Hayward both.”
“Or maybe Hayward’s jealous herself,” Erin added. “And she fed Ridgeway the chocolate.”
Webb nodded. “You’re right. Good work, Detective. Not even nine in the morning, and you’ve lengthened the suspect list by two. Maybe a little later, we can start whittling it down again.”
Vic came out of the stairwell, holding a big soda cup. “Give me good news,” he said. “I struck out with the Feds yesterday. They’ve got this firewall of petty bureaucrats in the RICO division. I wasn’t able to get through to anyone important.”
“Levine finished checking our victim, and the candy box,” Erin said. “One of the other chocolates was poisoned. Almond flavored.”
“Good,” Vic said. “I don’t like almonds.”
“Hides the cyanide taste,” Webb said. “Not that it’d do our victim any good. Your average Joe doesn’t keep an antidote kit lying around.”
“It makes sense not to poison all the candy,” Erin said. “Especially if you want to throw off suspicion by eating with the victim.”
“Risky,” Vic said. “You ever try to track down your favorite flavor in one of those boxes? Get it turned around, you might get a mouthful of poison. Or worse, coconut shavings.”
“That’s worse?” she asked.
“Cyanide kills you,” he replied. “You only wish coconut could.”
“Sorry they don’t make vodka-flavored chocolate,” Erin said. “For your sake.”
“Sure they do,” Vic said. “You clearly don’t shop at the right stores.”
“This is all very interesting,” Webb said. “But—”
“—we’ve got work to do,” Erin and Vic chorused in unison.
Webb gave them a sour look. “Okay, we’ve got four suspects, currently. Rocky Nicoletti, Paulie Bianchi, Amber Hayward, and an unknown second girl. First order of business, we need to identify the Jane Doe. We’ll start by doing a dump of Ridgeway’s phone. It should be down in Evidence.”
“I’ll do it,” Erin offered.
“I’ll go after Bianchi,” Vic said, a little too eagerly.
“No,” Webb said flatly. “I told you yesterday, we have to move carefully with him. Rocky’s still in a holding cell. I want you to lean on Nicoletti a little harder. My gut says he’s not our guy, but he’s the only one we’ve got right now. Shake him. See what falls out of his pockets.”
Vic grinned. “One shaken loser, coming right up. What’re you gonna be doing, sir?”
“Taking one for
