He and Mac had at least one thing in common; they were both members of the Four Percent Club.
She glanced at her watch and he focused on her again. “They were taking Luminux, right?”
She nodded. “It’s a good anti-anxiety drug. We make sure the patients have it available and take it if they have a panic attack or’re depressed.”
“Both Sam and his wife had an unusually large amount in their bloodstreams when they died.”
“Really?”
“We’re trying to find what happened to the prescription, the bottle. We couldn’t find it at their house.”
“They had it the other day, I know.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. I don’t know how much they had left on the prescription. Maybe it was gone and they threw the bottle out.”
Raw data, Tal thought. Wondering what to make of these facts. Was he asking the right questions? Greg LaTour would know.
But LaTour was not here. The mathematician was on his own. He asked, “Did the Whitleys ever mention Don and Sy Benson?”
“Benson?”
“In Greeley.”
“Well, no. I’ve never heard of them.”
Tal asked, “Had anybody else been to the house that day?”
“I don’t know. We were alone when I was there.”
“Did you happen to call them from a pay phone that afternoon?”
“No.”
“Did they mention they were expecting anyone else?”
She shook her head.
“And you left when?”
“At four. A little before.”
“You sure of the time?”
“Yep. I know because I was listening to my favorite radio program in the car on my way home. The Opera Hour on NPR.” A sad laugh. “It was highlights from Madame Butterfly.”
“Isn’t that about the Japanese woman who...” His voice faded.
“Kills herself.” Mac looked up at a poster of the Grand Tetons, then one of the surf in Hawaii. “My whole life’s been devoted to prolonging people’s lives. This just shattered me, hearing about Sam and Liz.” She seemed close to tears then controlled herself. “I was talking to Dr. Dehoeven. He just came over here from Holland. They look at death differently over there. Euthanasia and suicide are a lot more acceptable... He heard about their deaths and kind of shrugged. Like it wasn’t any big deal. But I can’t get them out of my mind.”
Silence for a moment. Then she blinked and looked at her watch again. “I’ve got a new patient to meet. But if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.” She rose, then paused. “Are you... what are you exactly? A homicide detective?”
He laughed. “Actually, I’m a mathematician.”
“A—”
But before he could explain his curious pedigree his pager went off, a sound Tal was so unaccustomed to that he dropped his briefcase then knocked several files off the nurse’s desk as he bent to retrieve it. Thinking: Good job, Simms, way to impress a fellow member of the Westbrook County Four Percent Club.
“He’s in there and I couldn’t get him out. I’m spitting nails, Boss.”
In a flash of panic Tal thought that Shellee, fuming as she pointed at his office, was referring to the sheriff himself, who’d descended from the top floor of the county building to fire Tal personally for the 2124.
But, no, she was referring to someone else.
Tal stepped inside and lifted an eyebrow to Greg LaTour. “Thought we had an appointment yester—”
“So where you been?” LaTour grumbled. “Sleepin’ in?” The huge man was finishing Tal’s cheese sandwich from yesterday, sending a cascade of bread crumbs everywhere.
And resting his boots on Tal’s desk.
It had been LaTour’s page that caught him with Mac McCaffrey. The message: “Office twenty minutes. LaTour.”
The slim cop looked unhappily at the scuff marks on the desktop.
LaTour noticed but ignored him. “Here’s the thing. I got the information on the wills. And, yeah, they were both changed—”
“Okay, that’s suspicious—”
“Lemme finish. No, it’s not suspicious. The beneficiaries weren’t any crazy housekeepers or Moonie guru assholes controlling their minds. The Bensons didn’t have any kids so all they did was add a few charities and create a trust for some nieces and nephews — for college. A hundred thousand each. Small potatoes. The Whitley girl didn’t get diddly-squat from them.
“Now, the Whitleys gave their daughter — bitch or not — a third of the estate in the first version of the will. She still gets the same for herself in the new version but she also gets a little more so she can set up a Whitley family library.” LaTour looked up. “Now there’s gonna be a fucking fun place to spend Sunday afternoons... Then they added some new chartites too and got rid of some other ones... Oh, and if you were going to ask, they were different charities from the ones in the Bensons’ will.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Well, you should have. Always look for connections, Tal. That’s the key in homicide. Connections between facts.”
“Just like—”
“—don’t say fucking statistics.”
“Mathematics. Common denominators.”
“Whatever,” LaTour muttered. “So, the wills’re out as motives. Same with—”
“The insurance polices.”
“I was going to say. Small policies and most of the Bensons’ goes to paying off a few small debts and giving some bucks to retired employees of the husband’s companies. It’s like twenty, thirty grand. Nothing suspicious there... Now, what’d you find?”
Tal explained about Dr. Sheldon, the cardiologist, then about Dehoeven, Mac, and the Cardiac Support Center.
LaTour asked immediately, “Both Benson and Whitley, patients of Sheldon?”
“No, only Whitley. Same for the Cardiac Support Center.”
“Fuck. We... what’sa matter?”
“You want to get your boots off my desk.”
Irritated, LaTour swung his feet around to the floor. “We need a connection, I was saying. Something—”
“I might have one,” Tal said quickly. “Drugs.”
“What, the old folks were dealing?” The sarcasm had returned. He added, “You still harping on that Lumicrap?”
“Luminux.” Makes you drowsy and happy. Could mess up your judgment. Make you susceptible to suggestions.”
“That you blow your fucking brains out? One hell of a suggestion.”
“Maybe not — if you were taking three times the normal dosage...”
“You think somebody slipped it to ‘em?”
“Maybe.” Tal nodded. “The counselor from the Cardiac Support unit left the Whitleys’ at four. They died around eight. Plenty of time for somebody to stop by, put some stuff in their drinks. Whoever called them from that pay phone.”
“Okay, the Whitleys were taking it. What about the Bensons?”
“They were cremated the day after they died, remember? We’ll never know.”
LaTour finished the sandwich. “You don’t mind, do you? It was just sitting there.”
He glanced at the desktop. “You got crumbs everywhere.”
The cop leaned forward and blew them to the floor. He sipped coffee from a mug that’d left a sticky ring on an evidence report file. “Okay, your — what the fuck do you call it? Theory?”