Dirty Money

by Liliana Hart

  “You left to go have dinner?” Jack asked, prompting her to finish.

  “We went for drinks about five o’clock, and there were serving dinner at six. They live on the other side of the golf course, so we just rode over in the golf cart. Sometimes Warren gets these migraines when he’s stressed, but he said he was fine, so we went to dinner anyway. But he was only halfway through his sherry when the headache got worse, and he said he wanted to come home. It was bad enough that he let me drive us back.”

  “I noticed that Warren was in his pajamas,” Jack said. “As are you.”

  “Sure,” she said. “It’s not like I was going to get to go out again. As soon as I walked in the door I came and got changed.”

  “What did Warren do?” Jack asked.

  “He went straight into the bathroom. I figure he was sick because he was in there a while. I went to the kitchen to open a bottle of wine and get something to eat, and he came in about twenty minutes later wearing his pajamas. He was really pale and kind of clammy, and he asked where the aspirin was. He likes the stuff we get from the Witches’ Brew. He said it works better than any of the big brands.”

  “When did he buy it?”

  “I bought it a few days ago. We ran out, so I picked up more after I got my hair done.”

  “Was the packaging already off or did he have to take it off?” he asked.

  Isobel looked confused.

  “Was the tin of aspirin sealed?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Yes, it was. Warren got it out of the cabinet, and his hands were a little shaky, so I peeled off the plastic and opened it up for him. I gave him two of the pills and then set the tin down on the counter so I could get him a glass of water. After that…” Her breath hitched in her chest and she seemed to pale, reliving her husband’s death.

  I was wondering if her focus on the dog was her coping mechanism for not thinking about her husband’s death.

  “It didn’t take very long,” she said softly. “There was nothing I could do. He’d barely swallowed the pills and he was gone. When he fell, he knocked the rest of the pills onto the floor. I called 911, but that’s when Schwartz came in.” Big tears were rolling down her cheeks now, and it was the first time I felt like she wasn’t trying to put on an act.

  “Do you or your husband happen to be acquainted with Roy and Nina Walsh?” Jack asked.

  Her movements were lethargic from the drug, so it took a second for the question to penetrate.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. Are they new to the club?”

  “I appreciate your talking to me, Mrs. Buchanan,” Jack said. “We’ll let you know when you can claim Warren’s and Schwartz’s bodies for burial.”

  She slunk back down on the bed and covered her eyes again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We took Warren and Schwartz to the funeral home, and I had time to get them logged in and put into the cooler before the warrants came through for Esmerelda Owens and her shop.

  “They’re bringing Esmerelda into the station,” Jack said. “Martinez and Walters went to pick her up. Martinez said she seemed concerned and was very cooperative.”

  “I’d be concerned too,” I said. “This is going to kill her business. If she’s innocent in this, then she’s a victim too. I love that shop. She’s got the best body scrub.”

  “Is that the stuff that makes your skin so smooth?” Jack asked.

  “That’s the stuff.”

  “I love that shop too,” he said. “Come on. Time is working against us. The more information we have the better to stop it.”

  We got back in the Suburban and headed for the station. The square was almost empty of civilian cars since most of the businesses closed at six, and Jack pulled into his parking spot. The front doors were locked, and Jack used his key to open the doors, and then hurriedly typed in his code to let us through to the back.

  “You made good time,” Martinez said from behind his desk. He was catching up on paperwork. “She gave us the keys for the shop, so the guys headed over to do a search.”

  “Thanks, Martinez,” Jack said. “That paperwork will wait until tomorrow. I know you’re way past shift. Go home and get some sleep.”

  “I’ll just finish it up if it’s all the same to you,” he said. “Getting behind is worse than having to do it at all. Suspect is in Interrogation A. I got her some coffee. She was about to go to bed when we picked her up.”

  “Impressions?” Jack asked.

  “Nice lady,” he said. “She’s got this really great cream that makes your hands and elbows really soft.”

  Jack raised a brow.

  “Sometimes I get dry skin,” Martinez clarified. “She’s worried about the victims and her shop, and she’s been nothing but cooperative.”

  “Thanks,” he said, and we walked down the same hallway we had earlier in the day to Interrogation A.

  Esmerelda Owens could have been twenty-five or sixty-five, it was impossible to tell, but she was probably somewhere in the middle. Her eyes held a wisdom that people in their twenties didn’t have. Her skin was impossibly smooth—a good testament to her products—and her hair was raven black and waved down her back.

  She typically wore brightly colored caftans, and lots of chakra necklaces and bracelets around her neck and wrists so she jangled every time she moved, and she didn’t disappoint now. She smiled when she saw us, but her dark eyes were tired and worried.

  “Dr. Graves,” she said. “I’m so glad to see you. It’s nice to see a friendly face.” Her gaze moved to Jack. She had a way of studying people that could sometimes be unnerving.

  “This is my husband,” I told her. “I don’t think the two of you have met before.”

  “No,” she said. “I haven’t had the pleasure. Though I’ve always wanted to after hearing you speak about him.”

  “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances,” Jack said. “Two people are dead.”

  “Yes, that nice officer told me,” she said, gripping one of her necklaces in her hand. “He said there’s poison in my products, and that’s what killed them, but I just don’t see how that can be. I’ve never even gotten one complaint of people getting sick from using my products. I’m very careful.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Jack said.

  The room wasn’t big—maybe eight by ten—and the walls were covered in blue fabric. There was a mirror so people in the observation room could see, and there was a camera in the corner of the ceiling, so everything was documented. We took the two chairs across from her. It looked like her coffee had gone untouched as the little Styrofoam cup was still full.

  “We know for certain the second victim died after taking your Witch Doctor brand of aspirin. He complained of a headache, took two pills, and died instantly. Which could have been a coincidence, but their dog ate one of the pills and died too.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s definitely not a coincidence. You’re not sure on the other victim?”

  “An identical tin was found in her bathroom. They’re testing it now to see if it contains cyanide. You make everything you sell? No other hands touch it?”

  “No,” she said. “And I know that doesn’t help me any, but I’m very careful. I don’t use poisons of any kind at all. I don’t understand how cyanide would be in those pills. I’m a naturalist. All of my medicines are plant based.”

  “We’re going to have a chemist at the lab break down the pills,” he said. “What do you use in them?”

  “Feverfew is the main ingredient,” she said, looking at me. I guessed she thought I would be more knowledgeable about herbal supplements, but those classes weren’t offered in med school.

  “What’s that?” Jack asked.

  “It’s a plant that does exactly what it sounds like,” she said. “I also used plant-based magnesium, some peppermint, ginger, turmeric, and cloves. It’s a fairly lengthy process. I’ve got to dry all of the plants and roots, and then I crush
them in my mortar and pestle until they form a powder. Once I have the powder at the right consistency it goes into the press.”

  “What do you do about packaging?” Jack asked.

  “I buy those tins in bulk from my supplier, use a little precut wax paper to fit inside of it, and then each box gets exactly twenty-four pills. I close the lid, stick my label on top, and then I have one of those plastic wrap and seal things like you see on the infomercials. Usually easiest is best.”

  “You do all that yourself?” I asked, amazed.

  She smiled and said, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. It’s also why a tin of twenty-four pills costs forty-eight dollars. On the upside, I’m able to make a fairly large batch at a time, so once I get going it’s easy to restock.”

  “When did you make this last batch?” Jack asked.

  “Oh,” she said, thinking. “The whole process takes three to four weeks, but most of that is to make sure the plants are dried good. I finished this last batch a couple of weeks ago and restocked the shelf. I was down to my last two tins, and I don’t like to let my supply get down that low.”

  Something had caught my attention when she’d been talking about the process of making the pills. “What do you mean when you say you put the pills in a press? What about the capsules?”

  “What capsules?” she asked, clearly confused.

  Jack reached in his pocket and took out a baggie with a couple of the pills we’d taken from the Buchanan’s house. “These capsules.”

  She stared at the red-and-white pills. “I don’t understand. I thought you said these came from my tin?”

  “The victim had just taken the wrapping off the tin, and this is what was inside,” Jack said.

  “I’m telling you that’s impossible,” she said. “You can check my inventory. I don’t use capsules. They’re not natural. My pills are tablets.”

  “Do you have surveillance cameras in your shop?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “But I do keep a customer log of who makes purchases. Would that help?”

  “More than you know,” he said. “I appreciate your help, Ms. Owens.”

  “Call me Esmerelda,” she said. “I hope you catch whoever did this.”

  “Believe me,” Jack said. “We will.”

  Half an hour later we were back home, and once again I was too tired to even pour a glass of wine, much less drink it. It was after ten o’clock, and Lewis and Doug were still in front of the TV playing a game that made me dizzy to watch, and where a lot of people were getting shot in the face. Doug had a headset on, and you would have thought he was landing an actual aircraft in a life-or-death situation instead of rotting his brain on a fantasy.

  “What?” Jack asked, staring at me. We were in the sitting room off the den so we could at least hear each other talk.

  “What do you mean, what?” I asked.

  “You sighed,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I just realized I’m officially old,” I said. “What are we going to do about this? We’ve got nothing but two dead bodies and a dead dog. Our suspect list could be endless.”

  “We need to sleep on it,” Jack said. “We’re both exhausted. What we do know is someone tampered with those packages. Walters opened every one of the aspirin packages they confiscated from the shop. Except for two of them, all the rest looked exactly as how Esmerelda described. So, someone was able to get hold of the tin and her label and put their own capsules inside. She uses a plastic shrink-wrap machine from the infomercial aisle. Anyone could copy that.”

  “Like I said, the suspect list could be endless.”

  “Esmerelda said she’d email her customer logs over by tomorrow morning,” Jack said. “In the meantime, the chemist at the lab is going to break down the ingredients for us. Maybe there’s something unusual about the capsules that’ll give us a place to look. They’ll start making announcements about the recall on the morning news, and the paper is going to put a warning on the front page. We’ve got a hotline and help center all set up.”

  “I’ve still got to dig in to Warren Buchanan,” I said.

  Jack grimaced. “That’s an unfortunate choice of words.”

  “Yet accurate,” I said. “We can’t keep delaying the inevitable. No matter how many bodies show up. We’ve got to get those flash drives in Doug’s hands. I’m more than happy to pretend Malachi doesn’t exist while we deal with this case, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to go away.”

  Jack blew out a breath. “Are we still fighting?”

  I felt my body go rigid. At some point we’d just fallen back into our natural pattern of things. It was easy for work to become a buffer between us. It bridged a gap when nothing else would.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You hurt me. And I don’t even know why. Maybe it doesn’t matter. But if you think I’d purposely try to sabotage our happiness then we have bigger problems than a madman on the loose. So yeah, I guess we are still fighting. And I am still mad.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I don’t know what normal is supposed to feel like with us because we haven’t had normal yet. And I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t frustrating.”

  “None of this is a surprise, Jack. My father was alive and making our lives hell before we got married. Maybe it’s your expectations that aren’t meeting the standard. Because I’ve always known what we’re dealing with. I don’t know what normal is. I don’t know what a normal marriage is. But I know we won’t have it until he’s out of our lives. And pretending things are normal isn’t going to help the problem. If you weren’t up for this, then you shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get married. Maybe all your frustration is really just regret.”

  “No,” he said, denying it emphatically. “I could never regret it. And maybe you’re right. Maybe this is on me and my expectations.”

  “Once you figure out what they are make sure you let me know,” I said. “I’ve got to go to bed. I’ve got to be up early.”

  He didn’t stop me as I left the room.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’d managed to do something I never had before. I woke up before Jack, snuck into the shower like a thief in the night, and I was downstairs pouring a to-go cup of coffee just as the sun was starting to turn the sky gray.

  I felt guilty for leaving like I was, so I snuck back upstairs and left a cup of coffee on the nightstand for Jack, and then I crept back down and grabbed my bag off the hook. Chen was waiting for me.

  “I didn’t realize you stayed the night,” I told her, surprised.

  “I was supposed to be off at midnight, but with all hands-on deck we were short a couple of people. It’s not like it’s a hardship to sleep in your house. That couch is a hell of a lot more comfortable than my mattress. I take it you’re heading to the funeral home?”

  “I’ve got the Warren Buchanan autopsy,” I told her. “I need him to give me some answers.”

  “Good luck with that,” she said, unlocking the door and going outside first.

  The patrol car parked in the driveway flashed its lights so we’d know they were there. It was still too dark for me to see who’d been on babysitting duty outside.

  “It’s Durrant and Smith,” Chen said. “They came on at midnight.”

  Jack had explained that he put two men in the car so they could relieve each other with short catnaps. It couldn’t be easy keeping a vigilant eye on things with nothing but total darkness and the sound of rushing water from the Potomac and the tree limbs blowing in the wind.

  They’d take turns patrolling the perimeter of the house and looking for signs that someone had been trespassing. They’d also take the occasional trip up and down the street to make sure there were no cars hidden off the road.

  Durrant rolled down his window and said, “Morning. Been a quiet night. We did a pass-through about half an hour ago.”

  “We’re heading to the funeral home,” Chen told him. “
Boss and the kid are still inside.”

  I unlocked the Suburban and Chen went around to the passenger side to get in. I tossed my bag in the back like usual, but when I moved to get in the front seat something caught my eye.

  There in the middle of the seat was my mother’s ring. Again. Popping up like a bad penny when I least expected it.

  “What’s that?” Chen asked, eyeing the ring.

  “I’d put it in my pocket yesterday,” I said. “It must have fallen out.”

  I picked it up and put it back in my pocket. With everything that had happened I’d completely forgotten to tell Jack about the ring. I got in without saying anything else and drove to the funeral home.

  It was Tuesday, but still well before any of the staff was due to show up. I unlocked the side door, and we went in through the kitchen.

  “I’ll make the coffee,” Chen said, heading over to the pot. “I don’t suppose you have any breakfast here?”

  “It depends on what kind of breakfast you’re looking for,” I said. “Jack’s idea of breakfast is oatmeal or one of those protein bars that taste like sawdust. But if you’d like something that has actual taste there’s donuts and Captain Crunch in the pantry. And there’s soft drinks in the fridge. Help yourself.”

  “You can lock yourself into the lab downstairs, right?” Chen asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “And you’ve got video surveillance monitors?”

  “Of course.” I was confused as to what she was getting at.

  “What about a couch? Do you have a couch down there?”

  “A small one. It’s not really a place I like to take a lot of thinking naps, but it’s shoved into the corner just in case.”

  “Perfect,” she said. She opened the pantry, grabbed the bag of donuts, and then took a Coke from the fridge. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “You’re going down with me?” I asked, floored.