Waiting for Armando (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) (14 page)

In a couple of minutes, Diaz rose from her desk and walked over to where Ingrid and I waited. As she approached I admired her polished toenails peeking out of low-heeled sandals beneath the hem of her slim, black skirt. I wondered if Armando preferred women who painted their toenails. Diaz looked surprised, but not displeased, to see me with Ingrid and ushered us both into a strictly utilitarian conference room off the reception area.

“I would offer you some refreshment, but our refrigerator is out of commission, and I wouldn’t recommend drinking city tap water. However, there is a machine downstairs, if you would care for a soda?”

We shook our heads and accepted two of the chairs that straggled around a small, heavily scarred table. Previous occupants had apparently killed time by carving obscenities into its surface. I didn’t understand some of them. I removed my hands from the tabletop and wiped them, I hoped unobtrusively, on my skirt as Sergeant Donovan eased into the room. Diaz remained standing, pacing restlessly.

“Ms.
Torvaldson
. Ms. Lawrence.” Donovan nodded politely and seated himself, notebook at the ready. It was comforting to be in the presence of someone who knew his role in these proceedings. I wished I knew mine.

“I’m glad to see you here, Kate,” said Diaz. “I had a feeling that you might be the one Ingrid asked to accompany her this morning, but if she had not, I would have been in touch with you next.”

I glanced questioningly at Ingrid, but she merely shrugged.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I asked you to come here today, Ingrid.”

Ingrid broke her silence. “I assume you have some reason to believe that I may have murdered Alain
Girouard
,” she said with admirable composure. “I didn’t, but I can understand why you might think I had a motive. You probably have more questions for me.”

Diaz stopped pacing and perched on the edge of a chair. She regarded Ingrid kindly. “Actually, I have some information for you. For you, as well,” she said to me.
“Some information and a request.”

She jumped up and resumed pacing, the heels of her sandals clicking on the tile floor. “I received the results of the toxicology tests early this morning, and I thought you both might find them interesting.”

She pulled a well-creased sheet of paper and chic reading glasses from a pocket in her skirt and reviewed what appeared to be handwritten notes. “The actual cause of death was respiratory failure. As we suspected the coffee on
Girouard’s
desk was laced with a cardiac
glycocide
, which he ingested sometime between 5:30 and 6:30 on Thursday morning. The specific chemical was
oldendrin
. That’s the drug doctors use to stop patient’s normal breathing so they can be put on respirators. It has a bitter taste, but the flavors of the coffee and the amaretto creamer would have masked that until he had swallowed enough to be lethal.

Ingrid looked as confused as I felt. “But I wouldn’t know where to get a drug like that. I never even heard of it before this morning.”

Diaz regarded her briefly over the top of her glasses. “We know that. There’s more.” She resumed reading. “
Oldendrin
wasn’t the only poison in that coffee. The lab also found evidence of coniine, which paralyzes the muscles much like curare. There were also traces of
convallatoxin
and
aconine
, both of which can cause heart failure.” She looked up from her notes and removed her glasses. “In short, there were enough poisonous substances in that coffee to drop an elephant. Somebody, or more than one somebody, wanted to make very, very sure that was
Girouard’s
last cup of coffee.”

I shook my head in an attempt to clear it. Ingrid sat silently rubbing her aching temples. “What does this have to do with Ingrid, Detective, or with me, for that matter? We aren’t doctors or pharmacists. We have no access to any of the drugs that you’ve mentioned.”

“Ah, but you do,” said Diaz with evident satisfaction, “and so do most of the other employees of your law firm. Everyone also has access to the refrigerator where the amaretto creamer
Girouard
used in his coffee was kept. That’s my point.”

Ingrid and I waited to be enlightened.

“BGB has a large and active horticultural society, does it not?”

We nodded.

“And even if they are not members of the club, I noticed that most employees have potted plants on their desks. There are also some very impressive specimens in floor pots in the reception area, as I recall.”

Would this irritating woman never get to the point?
I wondered in exasperation. Ingrid looked equally agitated.

Diaz turned to Sergeant Donovan, waiting patiently with his notebook.
“Sergeant?
Please share with us the results of your research on botanical sources for these toxic substances.”

We all looked at the sergeant.

Unaccustomed to being the center of attention, Donovan flushed as he read from his neat pages of notes.
“
Oldendrin
.
Botanical source, oleander, commonly grown as a houseplant in the northern United States.
All parts of the flower, and the water in which the flower is placed, are poisonous.
Coniine.
Botanical source, hemlock, commonly found in waste places around farm buildings in the eastern United States.
Convallatoxin
.
Botanical source, lily of the valley, often grown ornamentally in sheltered areas of the Northeast.
Aconine
.
Botanical source, monkshood, which grows wild in the eastern United States from Pennsylvania to Georgia.”
He looked up from his notebook, and Diaz nodded approvingly.

Ingrid and I looked at each other in dawning comprehension.

“I have an oleander. At least I think that’s what it is. It’s in a pot right on my desk,” she volunteered rashly, then clapped a hand over her mouth.

“We know that, too,” said Diaz dryly. “Kate has a lily of the valley on hers, although frankly, it doesn’t seem to be in very good condition.”

I squirmed in my chair.

“But no matter how angry you were with
Girouard
, Ingrid, or how loyal you were to Ingrid, Kate, it seems unlikely that you would use poison sources so easily traced to you.” She hopped up restlessly once again. “The fact is that Ingrid has an oleander on her desk, but so do Shelby Carmichael and the receptionist on the thirty-eighth floor. We suspect that it’s the same story with hemlock, lily of the valley, and
monkshood,
although the oleander is the only plant we’ve had an opportunity to check out so far. We don’t know why or who, but we believe that somebody who has been planning this murder for a very long time has turned the offices of BGB into a veritable nursery of poison plants in order to diffuse suspicion.
Which brings me to my request.
”

She paused, looking at Ingrid, then me, as if weighing the advisability of continuing. “Whoever planned
Girouard’s
death did so meticulously, possibly over a period of several years. It seems possible that such an effort might have been intended to facilitate the deaths of more than one victim. Now that the murder weapon, so to speak, is in place, other victims may be planned. It’s a tricky situation, and we want whoever the murderer is to believe that he or she has escaped suspicion. That’s why we would prefer to allow people to think that Ingrid is still our primary suspect.”

She looked apologetically at Ingrid. “We are pursuing all of the conventional aspects of this investigation, checking backgrounds, questioning everyone who was in the office early on the morning of the murder, verifying alibis, and so on. But now that we know the probable source of the poisons used to murder
Girouard
, we need someone inside the firm who can move about freely without creating suspicion and take an inventory of all the plants, if possible.”

Ingrid forgot her aching head and sat forward. “Do you mean us? You want us to help you investigate?” We exchanged looks of amazement. “Does that mean that you don’t think I killed Alain?”

Again, Diaz regarded Ingrid kindly. She really could be quite pretty when she smiled, I decided.

“You undoubtedly wanted to get away from him, gathering from his history of preying on pretty young women, but there were several others, inside and outside the firm, who had far more reason than you did to want him dead. I hope by working together, we can find out if one of them is responsible so that we can get your name off the suspect list altogether.” She touched Ingrid’s shoulder and looked at me. “And you, Kate? Are you willing to help as well?
Two heads, and all that.”

“I think we can do better than that,” I said, raising an eyebrow at Ingrid. She nodded. We filled Diaz in on Margo,
Strutter
, and our desire to help the investigation along unofficially. She listened closely and nodded her approval.

“So long as everybody understands that your role in this investigation is both voluntary and unofficial. Just make up whatever excuse seems plausible for you to be walking around with a clipboard, and list the plants that you see. It doesn’t matter whose desks they’re on, because anyone in the firm would have access to everyone else’s desk. The office doors aren’t locked, and people move about freely all day. However, it would be useful to know if anyone seems particularly knowledgeable about, or interested in, poisonous plants. Whatever you do, be discreet and careful. We will not be making specifics of the toxicology report generally available, and it’s essential that you keep your detailed knowledge to yourselves. This isn’t television. You’re dealing with a real murderer, and it’s probably someone you already know and would never suspect. That’s how these things go.”

She stood up to usher us out, picking up a book from her desk. Sergeant Donovan also rose, tucking his notebook into his shirt pocket. At the door Diaz handed me the book and each of us a business card. The book was entitled
A Pictorial Guide to Poisonous Flora of the Northeastern United States.
To the printed information on the business cards, she had added two handwritten telephone numbers.

“Keep these with you at all times. This top number is my cell phone. The other one is my home phone. Use them whenever you need them. Don’t even stop to think about it.” She gestured with her head to Donovan. “If you can’t reach me, call the desk and tell them to page the sergeant. And if all else fails, call 911,” she finished somberly.

Ingrid and I looked at each other, alarmed.

“You seem to be taking this very seriously,” I said.

“Murder is something I take very seriously. I urge you to do the same.”

~

On the way out of the police station, we were startled to see Vera
Girouard
getting out of the passenger seat of a late model Honda, which was pulled up to the curb outside the main entrance. Dressed simply and elegantly in a navy silk shirt and patio trousers that complemented her well-cut graying hair and subtle make-up, Vera bent briefly and spoke through the open window to the driver, then stepped back and waved goodbye. The car made a tight U-turn and headed out of the lot. I recognized Harold Karp.

We were directly in Vera’s path as she turned toward the door. After a moment’s hesitation she remembered where she had seen us before. She removed her sunglasses carefully so as not to disturb her hair and spoke to us by name.

“Ingrid,” she said, extending a slim hand. “And
Kate,
isn’t it?” I accepted her brief handclasp in my turn. “Being grilled once again by the good detective, I presume, as I am about to be. How are you holding up, Ingrid?”

“Other than being a little angry, I’m fine,” Ingrid replied levelly. “I’m sure you’ve heard that I’ve been sent home for an involuntary vacation until this situation is cleared up. I seem to be a suspect.”

“I didn’t know. Harold didn’t mention it this morning.”

“Was that Harold dropping you off?” I inquired, taking advantage of the opening. I felt Ingrid stiffen beside me.

Vera glanced in the direction in which the car had departed. “Yes, dear Harold,” she smiled, perfectly at ease.
“Always such a good friend to Alain and me.
He’s been a real help to me during this trying time. We were all at school together years ago in Boston, you know.”