The door opened to a hallway. Lit fluorescents hummed above and went the length of the corridor. Three offices branched off on the right. Two of them were dark and locked. The last one was open and light streamed into the hall.
Sean took out his mop and whistled a tune.
“Who is there?” It was a female voice.
“Just cleaning, ma’am.” He thought the latter was a nice touch. He kept washing the floor or sopping it anyway. He could handle never smelling mop water for the rest of his life.
“What are you—” The woman braced herself against the doorframe, almost panting for breath.
He didn’t have Sara’s precise memory, but he swore that was a sign of cyanide poisoning.
He stopped cleaning. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, but you shouldn’t be here right now.” She coughed. “I have work to do.”
Sean noticed how she was getting more winded with every word. Either she excited easily, like pretty much everyone else at Tasty Beans or something was wrong here.
“Oh.” She swayed left. Then right.
Sean let go of the mop and the handle banged against the floor. He steadied her balance and assessed her office. It was a nice size, but its potential was masked by clutter. “You should sit down.” He helped her to her chair and searched desperately for a nameplate, but there wasn’t one. He spotted a half-empty coffee cup. “What is your name?”
“Susan. I don’t feel so—” She vomited and barely missed Sean.
That was all it took. Blown cover or not, this woman was going to die if he didn’t get her help. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
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Chapter 38
FEIGNING ILLNESS
WITH THE BAY DOORS OPEN, Jimmy heard the approaching sirens. It was definitely an ambulance, and, from the sounds of it, turning into the lot for Tasty Beans.
He stopped keying information into the computer. The waybill could wait. “Someone must be hurt.” He said this to Luke, who sat beside him and watched his every move. The man wasn’t a good teacher, but he had observation down pat, and he had no problem pointing out what was being done incorrectly.
“Keep pecking away. It’s just an ambulance.”
The man’s reaction made Jimmy wonder something. “Do they come here a lot?”
“Just keep—” Luke waved his arm toward the computer.
The motion fanned a breeze of underarm odor right up Jimmy’s nose. It hit just right. He managed to grab a tissue from a nearby box just before he sneezed. “Sorry ’bout that.” Jimmy found it ironic how he was making the apology when it was Luke’s lack of hygiene that caused it to let rip in the first place.
“Don’t mention it.”
Jimmy thought he’d try asking the question again. “Do ambulances come here a lot?”
“Are you asking if we have a poor safety record? Then the answer is no. If you’re simply asking if an ambulance has been here before, then the answer is yes.”
It was more than this guy’s odor that was giving him a headache. Talk about speaking in riddles.
“Why did it come the last time?” Jimmy pecked a few keys and completed the waybill for one shipment. He picked up the paperwork for the next and started on it.
“Someone in the quality control department wasn’t feeling well.”
“What was it?”
“It just turned out to be some sort of bug.”
“Seems extreme to get an ambulance for the flu.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Ever since this happened about a month ago, she’s been pegged with a nickname. Pandemonium Sue. She’ll never live it down.”
“So she’s fine now?”
“I said it was a virus. She was fine within the week.”
Jimmy turned his attention to the waybills and, from what his supervisor would see, he was working. But while his hands moved to do the job, his mind was on Pandemonium Sue. Then it went to Sean and Sara. What if the ambulance was for one of them?
He stood to leave.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“I’m not feeling so hot myself. I’ve got to use the can.” That’s what he told Luke.
-
Chapter 39
FINE GRIND
SARA WAS GOING THROUGH THE motions as Casey directed while being careful not to let him get too close. She especially didn’t want him coming up on her from behind. All he’d need to do was push her into one of those blenders if he felt she was getting too nosey. She wasn’t going to take a chance on the man being partial to one murder method. All he’d have to say is that he tripped and it was all an accident.
As she watched the ribbons rotate, her mind conducted a similar process. It blended what she knew so far. Casey had confirmed access to testing the flavors before they’d go to packaging. Being the last stop before that happened, it would be relatively easy for Casey to poison the beans at that point, especially if he were working solo. She wondered how long he had been.
The alarm buzzed, notifying the plant employees that it was time for the dinner break. The timing was ideal for her and Casey as they had just added flavoring to a batch and it needed to turn for twenty-five minutes.
Casey opened the door for her. Once she was past him, she realized she had briefly let her guard down and had let him get behind her. She spun to face him and walked backward. “Eat with me?”
“I guess. What would your hubby think about that?”
“It’s just dinner. Besides he doesn’t have to know.” She smiled at him and met with a grin. Casey was a man after all. He must simply be leery of new people and, based on what he may have done, with good reason.
“So who worked with you before me?” she asked, hoping that since they were on their own time now and not the company’s he might be more straightforward.
“He left.”
“Oh, simple as that? Did he get another job?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How long were you on your own?”
“What is this, twenty questions? If you’re going to have dinner with me, I’d rather talk about you.” His arm no sooner touched her shoulder than it dropped.
Sean was hurrying straight for them, his face a wash of panic. She almost blurted out his real name. “What is it?”
He put his hands on her arms, bracing her from the front. “Susan in the quality control department was—” Sean glanced at Casey.
“Was what?” she prompted.
“She’s not feeling well. Can we talk?”
“Sure. Excuse me, Casey.”
Sean took her to a quiet corner of the lunchroom. “She was poisoned.”
“Are you sure?”
“Her symptoms were just like Beverly Sparks’. I was there.”
“You were there?”
“I’m the one that called the ambulance.”
“Oh my word, Sean.” She touched his cheek. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Let’s go.” He took her hand and led her out the front of the building.
Other employees were gathered around where the ambulance was parked, and two paramedics were loading a lady into it. Jimmy was standing at the edge of the crowd, moving this way and that, obviously trying to get a line of sight.
“Jim—Gavin,” Sara called out to him.
She and Sean jogged toward him.
“Thank heavens you two are okay. I was worried sick but thought this would be the best place to come to know for sure. Do you know what happened? Rumor is flying all over that it was Pandemonium Sue up to her old tricks.”
“There seems to be a lot of flying rumors.” Sean moved in closer to Jimmy. “And what do you mean by her old tricks?”
“Apparently she was taken away in an ambulance before, for a stomach bug, but within the week she was back to work.�
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“When was this?”
“A month ago, according to Luke.”
Sean signaled for them to move farther off to the side.
Once there, Sara said, “So she was sick a month ago and now she is again? That’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Not to mention that I was there with her. She was dizzy and almost lost her balance. She was sick on the floor. Oh, and she was out of breath.”
“All symptoms of cyanide poisoning, Sean. The doctors were wrong to assume she had a bug last time.”
“Possibly dead wrong.”
-
Chapter 40
AN UNFORGETTABLE WOMAN
SARA HAD NOTICED THAT WHILE most people had gathered in clusters, one woman stood alone, her arms crossed. She had black tresses and a pale complexion.
The woman must have sensed Sara’s observation of her and had turned to face her, holding the gaze for a few seconds before going inside the building.
Sara wasn’t sure whether this interaction had meant anything, but she recalled it later that night when the three of them were brainstorming in her and Sean’s hotel room.
“I can’t believe I was right there and couldn’t help her.” Sean sipped on a cognac while Jimmy drank a Scotch, and Sara stuck with water.
The word had come back before the end of shift that Susan Gallacher had died on the way to the hospital.
“Guess she caused pandemonium for a reason. She did have something to worry about,” Jimmy mumbled before placing his empty glass on the table next to him.
“We need to call Adam and let him know the latest news.”
“Let me do that, Sean.” She dialed Adam on speaker and he answered on the first ring.
“I was just going to call you. I’ve been at this all day and I’ve finally got some things sorted out.”
“Adam, we need to tell you something first.”
“What is it, Sara?”
“Another woman is dead. Poisoned.”
“I agree that we have to get the person responsible for this, but I don’t think it’s Casey Park,” Adam said.
Sean audibly gulped down his mouthful of cognac. “What about the money and the move? How can all of that be explained?”
“The law firm that made the deposits to his account specializes in estates.”
“It was an inheritance,” Sara stated.
“Yes. His great aunt died and left him everything. She was worth a fair amount and chose to have it divvied out to him.”
“It’s just coincidental that it was around the same time that he took a pay cut and moved across the country?”
“There’s a good reason for that too. Casey Park’s aunt died in November. Part of the stipulation for him to get the money was that he move to Williamsburg.”
“Why, I wonder.”
“So did I. So I did more digging. Casey’s cousin lives in town.”
“His great aunt’s child?”
“That’s right, living in a long-term care facility for people with mental issues. Another part of the deal was that Casey was to visit his cousin periodically.”
“Terrific work, Adam, except for one thing. It leaves us without a suspect.” Sean swirled his glass, the ice cubes clinking against the sides.
“Not exactly.” Sara filled the men in on the woman who had been standing alone. “She was in formal attire, the kind that would be required of office personnel, possibly even management.”
“It could explain why she was there when most of the office staff had already left for the day,” Sean added.
“Adam, check out the employee records for a woman in her twenties who works in the office.”
“Will do, Sara.”
“Call us back the second you have anything. I don’t care when it is.”
Sara ended the call. “We were so certain it was Casey we didn’t truly open our eyes to other possibilities. He seemed to have everything lined up in his favor, or against him, depending on how you look at it. But think about this, whoever is poisoning the coffee beans probably has access to all levels of processing.”
“Hopefully, that will narrow it down some,” Sean said.
-
Chapter 41
THE LATEST FINDINGS
SEAN’S RINGING PHONE woke them up. “Hello.”
“It’s Adam.”
“Just a sec.” Sean put him on speaker so Sara could hear.
“I’ve got a few women who match the criteria you mentioned last night. I forwarded them to your phone just before I called you.”
“Hang on.” Sean brought up the message and held the pictures out so that Sara could see them.
“That’s her. Number three.”
“Number three is Melissa Oliver. She works in the accounting department. She’s mid-level so I’m not exactly sure why she would have been there so late. Maybe they were behind and she was helping out. I don’t know. But I did some digging. Melissa’s background is clean, but she’s married to another employee of Tasty Beans.”
“Who?”
“Name’s Luke Oliver.”
“Luke?” Sara sat up. “That’s the first name of the man who is training Jimmy. Is he in shipping, Adam?”
“You got it.”
“Assuming they are behind the poisoning, we need a motive.”
“We also need to know if either of them has access to cyanide.”
“Let me solve that riddle for both of you. Melissa’s dad works in a lab.”
“Dee Dee had mentioned that cyanide’s locked up in pharmaceutical labs,” Sara said.
Adam continued. “Melissa’s dad works in one that would definitely have it around. It is used to measure urine ketone bodies as a follow-up for diabetic patients.”
“So Melissa got her hands on the cyanide from her father’s lab and poisoned the beans. But why?”
Sara jumped from the bed. “I know why, Sean. Remember Jimmy said that Tasty Beans was going to switch over all their deliveries to a parcel company? That would mean that Luke Oliver would lose his job.”
“That sounds like possible motive to me,” Adam said.
Sara continued. “Being in accounting, Melissa would have access to all departments. No doubt she’d collect reports from the section heads too.”
“We have to figure out if she has a reason for being there so late last night and get some proof on her.” Sean realized he was the unwanted voice of reason the moment he spoke and Sara narrowed her eyes, but it was the hard fact of life.
“Proof as in?” Sara asked.
“As in cyanide on her person. Indisputable proof she has access to the flavoring labs. Something. If it had to do with her husband losing his job, why not just poison management?”
“All good questions, Sean. Adam, we’ll take it from here.”
“Take care.”
“You got it.”
Sean studied his wife’s face. He recognized the hunger there and assumed it likely mirrored his own. They were close to stopping a killer and had to watch every move to make sure she was held responsible. “There is one major issue I just thought of. If word gets out that Susan died of cyanide poisoning, it might scare off Melissa.”
“She’ll likely go into hiding, or stop the poisoning for a while.”
“When you saw her, did you think she seemed upset?”
“I’d say upset, but not sad.”
“So we could be dealing with a psychotic.”
“Jimmy and I are anyhow. Didn’t you get fired?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure I will be today.”
-
Chapter 42
CALLED OUT
IF THIS WAS THE LAST time Jimmy saw this place, he’d be all too happy. Not that he was opposed to manual labor, or even spending time glued to a desk, but to be place
d in such an environment as Tasty Beans was its own version of cruel and unusual punishment. No one wanted to be there, as evidenced by their attitudes. And now, after receiving the update on Adam’s findings and the McKinleys’ hunches, he was working tightly with the suspect’s husband.
Everything had taken on a heightened sense of urgency since Susan had lost her life the night before. The gossip firing around carried no mention of the woman’s nickname, but it did include talk about poison.
So far it seemed the media had kept the exact type out of the limelight, but Jimmy figured it would only be a matter of time before the words death by cyanide were plastered across page one.
Even without reporters, the damage was done. Tasty Beans’ employees were talking about customer complaints and a few had left their shifts early claiming to feel weak. The local hospitals would be overloaded by them claiming illness—real or imagined—and the medical profession would have Melissa to thank.
Luke came up behind Jimmy—he hadn’t heard his steps, but that was definitely his smell.
“Good afternoon,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, it is.”
Jimmy needed mind-reading abilities because it was hard to tell if Luke was upset about Susan’s death or something else. Either way, it was apparent his mood was riper than usual. This guy made talking to Albert Needham seem like a walk in the park.
Luke grabbed the clipboard off the wall. “You’re driving today.”
Jimmy felt around in his pockets. “Ah, shoot.”
“You forgot your license again?”
“What can I say?”
“You’re incompetent for one.” He hooked the clipboard back in place and studied Jimmy.
“You said the agency sent you.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Interesting, because I called them after you left me hanging to go ambulance watching.”
The wad of saliva was thick going down Jimmy’s throat.
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