“Apricots kernels don’t have cyanide per se. They have what’s called amygdalin, which can be boiled in ethanol to get the white crystals. You’d have to filter the liquid to get the crystals. So if Dan is convinced that someone else did it, you’d be looking for white small crystals, but they’re soluble. If the dose was lethal, and it was, the time until death occurred would be 15 to 25 minutes.”
Gavin continued on about cancer treatments and laetrile and a few other tangents as Marissa looked out the window and gathered her thoughts. Dan had been right about a few things. Carla had been poisoned earlier and died after delivering a few plates to food to tables. Whose food had she been delivering when she was poisoned?
There were only a few ways Carla could have ingested the poison. According to Gavin, the police had ruled out a cup in the kitchen with her name on it. Since no one else had died, Carla had most likely not taken the food from a customer’s plate. What did that leave for Marissa to investigate?
Since few people ate out late on a Wednesday night, the restaurant wasn’t crowded. Marissa and Gavin found a table and sat down. No sooner had the waitress taken their order when Gavin’s phone rang. He answered and left the table to talk in more quiet circumstances. He looked grim as he walked away, and he looked back twice at his date, making her wonder what was going on.
He returned with a frown on his face. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said as he sat down. “Mr. Bishop is dead.”
“What?” Marissa said, feeling stunned. She had been in the process of coming up with a way to show that he was innocent, and now he was gone. “How?”
“He took some cyanide. The coroner checked at the scene. He could smell the scent of bitter almonds. The tests will still need to be run, but he was pretty certain. He’s smelled it a few times in other cases.”
Marissa wanted to talk, but couldn’t come up with anything to say. She had highly doubted that any of the customers could have possibly been the killer. The likelihood of getting a waitress to eat off a particular plate was small to none. Yet the husband of the suspect customer had now probably killed himself. Surely that would seem like an admission of guilt in most courts. But who had poisoned Carla, Mrs. Bishop or Mr. Bishop? Did he take his own life because he had killed Carla, or because his misbehavior had caused his wife to snap and take the girl’s life?
“Was there a suicide note?” Marissa asked.
Gavin gave her a grin while he tasted his chowder. “That’s more like the woman I know. I was a bit worried about you for a moment.”
She rolled her eyes at the backhanded compliment. Marissa appreciated that Gavin didn’t try to stop her curiosity. In some cases he actively encouraged it. He was more supportive when it was only an exercise in logic, like this case was, and less so when the murder involved people around her. Marissa knew he was being protective, but she still bristled at it.
“Well?” she asked.
“No, there was no note. The wife said that he’d been upbeat about the chances of her beating the charges in court. She had no reason to think that he was upset.”
Marissa took a bit of her salad. She was feeling less adventurous about ordering from menus after the murder case. Even if no one suspected his mental state, that didn’t mean a thing. Nobody knew exactly what went on in the thoughts of another. Mr. Bishop could have been playing along because being supportive was expected of him—until it became too much.
The facts were that two people had been poisoned. However, Marissa knew little more than this. Detecting at a distance was frustrating her. She’d only seen the crime scene from the outside, and she hadn’t met any of the likely suspects. Despite the fact that tomorrow was only Thursday, she decided to visit the diner. She hoped that Gavin would come, too.
She proposed her plan and then texted her boss at Kantor’s to let him know that she wouldn’t be in the next day.
~*~
The drive to the diner took just under 90 minutes. Marissa realized how dedicated she was to the task when she let Gavin drive right past the exit for the outlet malls. Wistfully, she thought back to the blouse she’d seen the other day. She made a vow to herself to spend some time shopping after she had a handle on this case. Gavin had opted to take a personal day to accompany her. He was a tad too scrupulous to call in sick. Sergeant Banderra would have been supremely suspicious of a sick day that included a trip to Columbus. After all, the sergeant had been the one to call Gavin and inform him of Mr. Bishop’s possible suicide. Banderra knew Gavin was curious about the case, and his wife had told him that Marissa’s ex-husband might be asked to testify. Most importantly, he learned that Zach had been in the diner where the crime occurred. Of course solving the case would help put matters to rest, a good thing for all concerned.
The drive to Hamilton County was pleasant with Gavin behind the wheel of Marissa’s car. The early morning sun shone on them, and Marissa found a station, playing 80s music. Following her memory from the previous visit, they pulled into the parking lot of the diner. Marissa wondered for a moment if the place was even open, because her car was the only one in the lot, save a few older model cars behind the building. Determined, she let herself out of the car and strode to the diner’s entrance, leaving Gavin a few steps behind her.
The restaurant was, indeed, open for business, but no customers were visible. The staff consisted of one waitress who was reading something on her phone. Marissa sat down at the table that Dan had indicated he’d used three weeks ago. Gavin sat down opposite her.
Marissa scanned the menu quickly, looking for items that would be covered in some kind of sugar or salt. Unfortunately, diners don’t serve Margaritas. She could have used one. Marissa read the entire list of entrees once and went through it again.
“What exactly are you doing?” Gavin asked. “Memorizing this for a test?”
She shook her head. “No, I was looking for food items that would be covered in salt or sugar. Something that would mask the fact that there was poison on it.”
Gavin took a deep breath. “That’s all well and good, but you’re forgetting something. The waitress was killed. Not the customer. Any order that has a dusting of white powder is irrelevant, because she wouldn’t have eaten it.”
Marissa made a face at him, but he was right. By every piece of logic, the customer should be poisoned by the restaurant’s fare, not the waitress. The backwards logic of this case was throwing her. Carla must have willingly consumed something given to her by a customer or coworker.
Even so, Marissa used the excuse to order the French toast with plenty of extra powdered sugar on top. Logic didn’t always apply when it came to sweets and sugar.
Gavin started his patter when the waitress arrived with the food. “Things seem kind of slow here. Is it always like this?”
The woman plopped the food onto the table without ceremony. “Are you reporters? You look familiar,” she said, pointing to Marissa.
Marissa didn’t remember the woman, though she hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to the waitress on her earlier visit. She’d been concerned about Zach, not the staff. “No, I was here the day—it— happened.” Marissa used the vague word “it” instead of “murder,” knowing that most people preferred such expressions. Unpleasantness was always referred to in the broadest of terms. “My son was here with his father.”
“Oh yeah, I remember him. Cute kid. It’s kind of hard to forget that day,” she said, crinkling her forehead. “What can I get you?”
Marissa ordered the French toast, and Gavin ordered an omelet. They sat and waited for the waitress to return. The homicide detective hadn’t said anything about the way she was handling herself, and Marissa felt some pressure to do this right in front of a professional. Usually she asked questions on her own time and shared the information with Gavin when the moment was right. It was entirely another matter to have him watching her performance.
The waitress returned with two tall, unsweetened iced teas. She looked at both of them and
said, “Why exactly are you here?”
Marissa cleared her throat. “Look I know this sounds weird, but my son has been having some bad dreams since that day,” she lied. “I thought if I found out what happened from the people who were there, then I could help him cope better.” She gave the woman a wan smile to indicate her need for help.
“I understand. I have a little one at home.” The obligatory sharing of candid photos from the phones followed, and Marissa made the appropriate noises when the waitress, whose name badge read “Deanna,” showed her pictures of a six-month-old baby. Marissa was always happy to look at pictures of other people’s babies, but she was eternally grateful that Zach was older now.
When they were done, Deanna stared at Marissa as if assessing her. “Okay, I’ll answer some questions. Not sure I believe the whole kid having bad dreams thing, but those are definitely pictures of the little boy who was here the other day. So what do you want to know?”
“Did you see Carla eat or drink anything before what happened?” Marissa asked quickly. She tried to balance moving the process along with appearing too anxious. She worried that the waitress might get busy, although that seemed unlikely because no one had entered the diner since she and Gavin had arrived.
“No, that’s just it. None of us saw her eat or drink anything. She didn’t usually eat much. Now we realize it was because she was seeing someone and wanted to stay thin for him. Despite being on her feet all day, that girl could eat and instantly put on weight. Most of the rest of us lose a few pounds after a few shifts, but not Carla. But we also noticed that she’d been looking run-down lately. Probably because she wasn’t eating.”
“You didn’t know that she was seeing anyone? She didn’t have any particular friends here at the diner?” Marissa was getting an idea of the type of girl that Carla was, eager to please and needy.
“Not really,” Deanna said. “I mean, if you’d sat me down and given me an hour to think about it, I probably could have deduced that, but when do you get that long to sit and think?”
Marissa had to admit that the waitress looked tired. Any job dealing with the public involved long hours and little pay.
“So no one saw Carla eat anything or drink anything?” Marissa repeated, hoping to jog more memories loose. She figured from the state of the restaurant that it might not be in business the next time she had questions.
“Just water from a bottle. She kept it back on a shelf by the kitchen. Wanna see?” Deanna asked, motioning them to get up.
“Can you do that?” Marissa asked, knowing that management would have her hide for inviting customers to visit the dark cubbyholes they called offices. The backrooms never looked as inviting as the front areas.
“Sure, who’s going to stop me? The manager went home at ten and called it a day.”
Marissa shrugged and followed Deanna. Gavin came along, too. He hadn’t said much yet, especially about her lies to the woman. However, Marissa had watched enough crime shows to know that the police told lies when it suited their purpose.
If management had left at ten a.m., then Marissa’s prognosis of the diner’s fate was pretty well settled. A few infractions weren’t going to hasten its closure.
The woman showed them the kitchen area, which was much as Marissa remembered it. The stoves were on the left behind a counter. Some shelves and storage bins were on the right. “That’s where we keep our personal drinks and sometimes food. If the food needs to be refrigerated, it goes back there,” she said, pointing to a walk-in freezer.
“Carla only had a water bottle that day?” Marissa asked again, trying to prime the pump for a few more revelations.
“Yeah, that’s all she ever had.”
“Did she put her name on it?”
The waitress shook her head. “She drew a big smiley face on it with a permanent marker. Just her way.”
Marissa turned and looked at Gavin, who also shook his head. The investigators had taken a cup with Carla’s name written on it. It had tested clean of poison. However, no water bottle had been mentioned in the reports. Since no such bottle sat on the shelves now, Marissa assumed that it must have been thrown away.
They all returned to the booth. Deanna excused herself to get their food, and the couple sat down to wait.
“Before you even say a word, that stuff has a bitter aftertaste. She would have known in a second that something had been put in her water. You’d need to put it in something to mask the flavor.”
“Like what?” Marissa countered, not wanting her discoveries to be crushed so soon.
Gavin smirked. “Since we’re playing detective, I could tell you that Agatha Christie put it in champagne.”
Marissa looked around. That suggestion was decidedly unhelpful here.
“Then of course, you have the types who put it in pills and tablets.”
“Gavin, if I couldn’t get a waitress to eat a fry off my plate, I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t get them to take a Motrin or Nyquil.”
“Not even if the waitress was involved with the customer or a kindly grandma or a potential boyfriend?” Gavin asked, raising his eyebrows. “You have to take two things into account here. The first is that cyanide is really hard to get these days. It’s used in a few fields for its corrosive aspects, but that’s not the type of cyanide we found here. It came from another source, most likely organic. Apricots are probably the most common source of it, if I wanted to kill someone, but apricots are not local.”
“But you don’t,” Marissa said, giving him a wink to lighten the mood a little. Apparently he had not been a fan of her techniques.
“No, just theoretically. So if you’re going to poison a person with it, you can get it from some fruit seeds. Or from a cancer med that didn’t live up to the hype, laetrile.”
“Then you would have to boil and filter it.”
“That part’s not impossible, but it’s also not too easy.”
“You mean like nicotine,” Marissa said as she reached across the table and squeezed his hand. They’d met over a case that involved poisoning, and while most people would have found it to be stressful, Marissa had been glad for the opportunity to help those who had been falsely accused. A small part of her had to admit that showing up Sergeant Banderra had also played a part in her motivation. “What’s the second thing?”
Gavin looked momentarily surprised.
“You said I’d need to take two things into account. The first is that cyanide is hard to get. What’s the second?” Marissa asked.
“We need to figure out how the poison was introduced to victim’s system? I mean, yes, you found a method that the crime scene techs missed with Carla’s water bottle, but it’s hard to believe that would work for tricking someone into drinking cyanide. Cyanide has a pungent smell of bitter almonds. Bitter almonds don’t taste good. So why would Carla drink nasty tasting water?”
Marissa picked up a menu again and ran through the items on the list. For drinks, she saw coffee and orange juice as two likely candidates. She couldn’t find many cooked items that would be conducive to adding a strong powder to it. Then again, she had no idea what would happen to the poison if it was cooked.
She’d started to ask Gavin about cooking when Deanna returned with their food. Even though she’d just been speculating on the use of powdered sugar as a method for poisoning someone, she dug into the French toast with gusto. She was hungry and the pleasure of being served, rather than cooking for two, only added to the luxury—even if it was only a diner.
Gavin dug into his omelet, which looked passable. He usually was more of a burger and steak guy, so she wondered why he’d selected that.
Before Marissa could finish her meal, the waitress came back with their checks. “If there isn’t anything else…”
Marissa swallowed quickly, nearly choking on the bread. “There is. How well did you know the other people here that day?”
Deanna scrunched up her face as she thought. Marissa didn’t rush her since there were n
o other people there to demand the waitress’s attention. “Well, obviously, the Bishop family. I just didn’t realize how well Carla knew them.”
“They came here often?” Marissa asked. She could see the appeal of a small, cozy business where people knew you. It would beat a drive-thru any day.
“Once a week, usually. Sometimes twice a week, but almost always on Saturdays. They always sat in Carla’s booth when she was here. Otherwise they sat wherever.”
Marissa realized that the decision had been a family one. Had Mrs. Bishop known that her husband was visiting Carla after hours? Had she suspected something from the interactions here at the restaurant? If so, why Mrs. Bishop agree to be waited on by her husband’s lover? She would have to be an Oscar-worthy actress to pull that off without betraying her emotions. Marissa doubted she could stomach being in the same restaurant with a homewrecker.
Deanna continued, “It didn’t seem like anyone was angry. So I’m thinking the wife didn’t know. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Carla never told a soul who worked here. I don’t know how anyone would guess she and the husband were involved.”
Marissa decided to change the subject. They’d entered the realm of wild speculation, and she had enough thoughts running around in her head.
“What about the other two people who were customers that day? If I remember correctly, there were an older woman and a younger man?” she said, making Dan’s memories her own for this interview.
“That would be Mrs. Williams. She’s a nice old thing, but she’s not doing well. She hasn’t been around much. She went out of the country for a while. When she came back, she was looking poorly. I’m not sure what’s going on there.”
“Did she know Carla well?” Marissa asked.
“A little. Not much. Mrs. Williams sits wherever there’s an open space. She doesn’t really have a favorite waitress. I think she comes here so she won’t have to eat alone. She doesn’t have family that I know of.
Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime: Includes Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crimes Page 94