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Detective Victor Pauline looked at his file once more and set it down in disgust. He didn’t like what he was reading. He got up and strolled over to the window. It was late June, and the weather was starting to get hot. Puffy clouds raced across a blue Central Valley sky. A slight breeze pushed them around.
He walked back to his desk. The copy of Toxins from Living Plants lay on his desk. It had an entire chapter on Poisons and thoroughly covered the poison Ricin and its effect on people and animals. They had dusted the book for prints and had found those of the science teacher, Allie and the co-teacher, Jan. He had both women come down to the station for additional questioning. The book was now in a zip-lock bag.
Allie was ushed in and he gave her a chair.
“This is your book, Ms. Harley?” He lifted the bag and pointed. She nodded in reply.
“Why do you have a book like this? What is it for?” Pauline asked.
Ready for questions on the book, Allie produced a lesson plan created for the nurses “Poisons and their Antidotes.” She handed it over, nodding like a bobble head doll.
“I teach a course to nursing students. Part of their training covers poisons that both people and animals can ingest. We cover the symptoms and progression of the illness and medical management to save the patient.” It all gushed out in almost one breath.
Pauline nodded. “Noted,” he commented. “What do you personally know about the poison Ricin?” He gazed at her with shrewd blue eyes.
“Ricin is a derivative of the castor bean plant and is made from the beans. There are many cases where adults or children have ingested the beans and have become lethally sick.”
Talks like an encyclopedia, he thought.
“Can they be saved?”
“If the symptoms are recognized soon enough. If the patient is able to tell the medical team what they ate. If antibodies are introduced early enough. Yes, the person can survive.”
Allie sat on her chair with her hands folded in her lap. Her shoulder length hair was a dark blond. She wore simple chinos, a cotton shirt and flat shoes.
Clearly anxious. Not unattractive, Pauline thought to himself. Certainly not the criminal type anyway.
She kept her head down. She is hiding something, he thought. He could see some beads of sweat forming on her upper lip.
“So, this is a regular part of your curriculum then?”
She nodded without lifting her head.
He paused and stroked the bag. “I notice, Ms. Harley…”
“It’s Mrs. Harley,” she interrupted. “Mrs. Jason Harley.” She looked up at him for just a moment and he saw a flash in those hazel eyes.
“Sorry, my mistake. Mrs. Harley. I, ah, notice, that you have not asked me why I am asking you these questions. Or, for that matter, why we care about this book?”
Pauline had moved from behind his desk and perched himself on the edge of the desk, closer to her. He massaged a little squeezy, purple stress ball.
“I guess it has something to do with Dodi…her death. I suppose,” she finished miserably. The hands tightened in her lap.
“Yes,” he replied, “it does.” He walked over to the side panel window and looked out. “How well did you get along with Mrs. Greenfield?”
“Who?” Allie looked surprised. “Oh, Dodi. She never used her last name. Fine I guess.” She studied her hands.
“Fine?” Pauline answered. He went back over to his file. “Witnesses indicate you were seen with her a couple of times having ‘private conversations’ and you didn’t look happy. Also, a flyer for one of her house sales was on your desk. Apparently, you and your husband were attempting to get a loan on a house she was selling on the North end of town. A little pricey for a young couple with a new baby, isn’t it?”
Allie said nothing and kept her head down.
“Is there something you want to tell me, Mrs. Harley?”
Allie shook her head no and he could tell she was about to tear up. He handed her a box of Kleenex. She grabbed two and put them to her eyes.
“Okay, then. You think about it.” He handed her a business card. “If you have more to tell me, give a call.”
She nodded, then getting up, she bolted out of the room.
His partner, Raul, came in as she was leaving.
“Beating them up again, Pauline?” he asked cheerfully. Pauline threw the squeezy ball at him and went to get a coffee.
#
Next, it was the co-teacher, Jan Douglas’s turn.
“So, how long did you work together?” Pauline asked.
“It was just this semester; this was the first time I worked for this school.”
“How would you describe your relationship?”
Jan stared at him with big doe eyes before she spoke. “Alright, I guess.”
“No problems?”
“Just the usual disagreements about teaching, course material. That kind of thing.” She stopped talking.
“I have a report, Ms. Douglas, that indicates the two of you did not get on well at all and were virtually fighting in front of students.”
Jan’s face began to flush. “I, I, well…”
“Is this report true? It came from a student in your class.” His blue eyes peered at her.
She flushed again. There is no getting out of this, she thought to herself. Nicey-nice is not going to do it. She smoothed her hair.
Jan apologized. “I am sorry if I wasn’t completely frank with you, Detective.”
He smiled affably, the squeezy ball was back. He worked the ball back and forth between both hands.
“It was like this,” she sat up straighter and readjusted her purse on her lap.
Not bad looking gal, Pauline thought to himself, older, but not bad.
“Dodi was assigned to my class at the last minute. I was told she was my ‘helper’.” Jan spoke hurriedly now. Trying to get all the words out. Pauline nodded.
“She was anything but helpful. Instead….” She stopped, casting about for words. Jan looked at Pauline. “It’s not considered professional to criticize co-workers or the dead.”
He nodded saying nothing.
“Dodi was extremely difficult, unhelpful and a burden in the classroom.”
“How so?” he asked.
“I think she was trying to get me fired.”
“Why?” he asked squeezing the little ball harder.
Jan shrugged and cast her eyes around the room. “I don’t know. New kid on the block, competition. Who knows. Just a mean bitch…oop.” She stopped and put two fingers on her own lips. A guilty look crept over her face.
Now we’re getting somewhere. The detective sat down and made some notes.
“I wish you wouldn’t write that down,” Jan pleaded.
“Is it the truth?” Pauline asked.
Jan sighed. Her shoulders slumped. “Yes, it is. She had been there a long time and supposedly had a lot of friends. Well, that’s what she said.”
“What do you think?”
“It’s difficult to say.”
“Try.”
“The Dean loved her to pieces. I thought. She was always protecting her. But other folks….”
His eyebrows went up.
“Other folks seemed to be sort of uncomfortable around her. Like being around her left a bad taste, sort of thing.”
Pauline nodded. “What was she like the last week you worked with her?”
Jan thought. “She seemed sick. I mean, she was always getting sick, headaches, toothaches. You name it. But this time…”
“Yes?”
“This time she really did look sick. She had a cough, wheezing, looked feverish. I didn’t like it. Was afraid it might be contagious.”
“Did you tell her to go home?”
“Well, she always went home early anyway.” She paused, “And, she didn’t pay too much attention to me. But this time, she really didn’t look good. I said, ‘go home, I’ll handle it.’ So, she did. That’s the last I saw of her.”
“That was a Wednesday?” he confirmed.
She nodded.
“And you didn’t hear anything else until you got to work on,” he looked at his notes, “Friday?”
She nodded.
“What do you think happened to her, Ms. Douglas?”
“No idea,” she told him simply.
“She died on Thursday night in her car. She had been out drinking and passed out in her car. But the effects of the poison had been working in her system for several days and she died about midnight.”
“Poison?” Jan’s eyebrows shot up.
The detective reached forward and picked up the bag with the little book. He held it so she could see. The title on the top of the page read Poisons. Trailing a finger down the page he stopped at Ricin and held it closer, so she could see it.
“Ricin?” she asked.
“Castor beans,” he replied.
“But how, why, castor beans? I don’t get it. What would Dodi be doing with castor beans?”
“Nothing, actually.” Pauline had relaxed around this teacher. He couldn’t see her being involved. Too honest. “It was castor bean oil.”
Jan looked quizzical.
“Mrs. Greenfield smoked and also used a vape cigarette, correct?”
“Yes, she did both. I don’t know why use the vape if she was still smoking.”
He smiled at her. “The oil was found in the vape contraption. She had been inhaling the fumes for a number of days and it finally killed her.”
Jan looked stunned. “Wow.”
“You say she was coughing and looking sick? Watery eyes, running to the bathroom?”
She sat and thought a moment. “Yes, all those things. So, that was the poison…? Oh, my God.” She put her hand to her mouth again.
“Yep,” Pauline started to gather his notes together, “unpleasant ending to your life.”
“Wow,” Jan managed again.
“Anything else, Ms. Harley? Might be important?”
She shook her head. He handed her a card and got up from his desk. He motioned her up.
“You can go, Ma’am.” He held the door for her. “Call if you think of anything else that we should know, call the number on the card.”
Dumbly, Jan viewed the card again, put it in her purse and left.
“Damn, you’re polite for the ladies,” his partner, Raul Morales, grinned at him.
Pauline feigned a throw of the ball but Raul ducked.
Continued Part V
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