“You’ll do it. Thank you for calling me. I’m going to track down Cooper. She’ll tell me to butt out. Always does, but I can read between the lines. If I get even a whiff of generalized danger, I’ll call you.”
“Thank you.”
After hanging up, Harry finished her job, returned to the house along with Tucker, who shadowed her. Tucker felt she was protecting Harry. If she could, she would.
Opening the door, Pirate woke up, bounded over. “I missed you. I fell asleep. You won’t leave me, will you?”
“What a handsome boy.” She knelt down to kiss the puppy, who was growing so fast she wouldn’t have to kneel much longer.
“I like you. I like Tucker.” The tail wagged.
Tucker whispered, “Say something good about the cats. Pewter has one eye open and she can be a royal pain in the ass if you get on her bad side.”
The Irish wolfhound whispered back, “She’s mean to me. The other kitty is nice.”
“Pewter is even mean to Harry. She turns her back on her, flattens her ears, and walks away or sits on the bookshelf and kicks off a row of books. She’s a terrible cat.”
“I heard that!” came a growl.
Now Mrs. Murphy awakened. “Heard what?”
“Tucker told Pirate I was a terrible cat.”
“Oh, don’t pay any attention. She’s being dramatic,” the tiger cat said to the Queen of Drama.
Oblivious to the swirl around her, Harry reached for the wall phone. She did notice that Pirate was sticking close.
“Coop! Anne de Vault called me to tell me Nature First has crime scene tape on the doors.”
“Ah, well, yes it does.”
“So this is what I think.” Harry ignored the groan on the other end of the line. “Murder. Obviously. No violence. No blood. No bruises or marks. At least no obvious marks. It’s possible the medical examiner’s office found something. But my money is on poison.”
“Yes.” Cooper tried to remain noncommittal.
“And it would have to be a fast-acting, colorless, and odorless poison. No arsenic. We’d know because it has a distinct odor. No belladonna. Her pupils would have been enlarged. It appeared she suffered a stroke or a heart attack.”
“That’s quite a bit of information from someone who didn’t see the body.”
“Coop, someone would have noticed. This is a small community. I would have heard, so I know I’m right.”
“You are. The team is there going over everything, especially the little kitchen and the bathroom. There could be a trace in a cup. A small residue on a counter.”
“Tell me. You know I’ll dig it out sooner or later, plus what if I’m in danger? I’ve been in her office many times, and recently.”
“If you were exposed you’d be dead,” Cooper said with finality.
“What the hell is it?” An exasperated Harry swore.
Resigned, Cooper spilled the beans: “Nicotine.”
“Cigarettes?” Harry was incredulous.
“Pure nicotine. It is colorless, odorless, viscous. You can buy it on the Internet for twenty dollars for fifteen milliliters. Those transactions can be traced. We can’t find such a transaction. It’s possible the killer has had a supply for years or stole nicotine from a pharmacy in the past.”
“Nicotine?” Harry uttered in disbelief. “How can you kill someone with nicotine? Force it down their throat?”
“No. It’s easy because nicotine can be absorbed through the skin. Exposure to the air causes some discoloration. To date there is no discoloration on Lisa’s body.”
“Could the killer have wiped it on, say, her lips or her arm?”
“I think he did. Whoever killed her knows chemistry.” Cooper took a deep breath. “The stuff, the pure liquid stuff, five drops or less, can kill a person in minutes. If it’s a high dose there won’t even be the nausea and seizures that can accompany it. The victim can die almost instantly of respiratory failure. Five drops for a normal-sized woman of Lisa’s age.”
“Dear Lord.” Harry gasped.
“She probably suffered a few seconds, knowing she was dying, but it was so quick. We can’t find out how the poison was administered. That’s why the team is back. Is there a trace on her desk? Something like that?”
“Then wouldn’t Felipe or Raynell be dead?”
“Possibly. If there was a trace it would have made them sick. But neither one mentioned illness. And Lisa had to have had pure nicotine on her body.”
“Where are Felipe and Raynell?”
Cooper was exasperated. “They’re down at HQ. More questions.”
“I knew it!”
“That doesn’t take a rocket scientist,” Cooper fired back at her.
“Well, I imagine they’re scared.”
“Raynell more than Felipe. She kept saying what if she touched something. We told her if she had, she’d know. Tears. The usual. Felipe on the other hand is trying to figure this out. Replaying everything. Stuff like, did someone come in and out and somehow they missed it.”
“I don’t see how they could.”
“No.”
“Here’s another piece of unsolicited advice. She was killed because of something she has in common with Gary.”
“You don’t know that” came a too-swift reply that told Harry what she needed to know.
Fortified by that, Harry repeated to Cooper the thoughts she had told Anne.
“I agree the two shared those interests, but what could there be about them that would imperil someone else or someone else’s profits? It doesn’t add up.”
“If you find the connection, it will.”
“I’m not as convinced as you are but I do agree there might be a tie. But, Harry, if whatever they shared in common led to their murders, it’s a tie they were at great pains to hide.”
“Maybe not, Coop. We just don’t see it yet, or it’s outlandish to us. But I will tell you one thing, whoever used this poison is smart. Knows chemistry. And is bold. Think of how Gary was shot in front of us. This, of course, was stealth. Do you think this might be a professional killer?”