Bitter Business

expensive?” I asked.
    “Two hundred and fifty dollars a gallon.”
    Elliott whistled softly.
    “The reason that Philip was so eager to show it off to the board is that his people have come up with a cheaper way to make the stuff. I’m sure he figures the company can make a lot of money breaking up 3M’s monopoly,” I said.
    “I wonder how he’ll react when you tell him that it was used to kill his mistress and his sister?” Elliott demanded in a hard voice.
    “I’m going to see him, now,” Blades replied, “but it wouldn’t hurt if you put one of your guys on him, Elliott, once I’m done with him, just to see if he does anything stupid.”
    “You meeting him at his office, you said?” Elliott asked. Blades nodded. “Then let me go and make a call.”
    The homicide detective and I faced each other across the sticky top of the bar table.
    “You’re right,” I said, “this isn’t turning out at all like I expected.”
    “Well, it sure surprised the hell out of me. I thought I’d seen it all, but someone dying from a drop of perfume is a new one. It’s also going to be a bitch to prove, even if we figure out who did it.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Let me tell you how cops solve murders—not Columbo, mind you, real cops: physical evidence, witnesses, and confessions.” He raised a long finger as he counted each one off. “First the physical evidence. So far the physical evidence in this case is slim, to say the least. The first death was originally thought to be accidental, so there was no attempt made to preserve or analyze the crime scene, and even after the second murder the scene yielded shit. All we’ve got so far is the bottle of perfume. The only solid fingerprints on the bottle are of the two dead women. We also have the box that it was mailed in. It’s got only the fingerprints of people we already know handled it. It was postmarked on the twelfth of February, which is not exactly a breakthrough since it was supposedly sent as an anniversary present. You never know, we may get lucky with the business cards that were used to address the box, but according to the sales rep whose name is on them, he’s been handing them out twenty times a day for about the last ten years. Likewise, we may get a break on the Fluorad. I’ve got the crime lab scheduled to dust at Specialty Chemicals for prints once Philip shows me where it’s kept. I’m also sending some uniforms to see if anybody noticed anything unusual. But again, I’m not holding my breath. So far our killer hasn’t made any mistakes, and I’d be surprised if we started finding fingerprints now. So that’s your physical evidence.” He held up a second finger.
    “As far as witnesses, that’s pretty easy. You’re the only one and you saw diddly. And third”—he put up another finger—“confessions. I guess there’s a chance that someone will come in beating their breast and confess. Not likely, but always possible.”
    Elliott returned to the table. “I sent a man over to Superior Plating. He’ll stick to Philip Cavanaugh like glue,” he reported.
    “What about the perfume?” I demanded. “Surely there’s a chance you’d be able to trace the sale of the bottle. You said it was expensive.”
    “That’s the angle we’re working on now,” Blades replied, taking his bottle of beer in his hand. He took a swallow and made a face. “Elliott’s got four people on it, too. But I’m telling you, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. The perfume could have been bought anywhere—Chicago, the suburbs, the duty-free shop at a dozen airports. At this point there’s no way of knowing whether the perfume was doctored before or after it arrived in the mail. We can’t even be sure who the intended victim or victims were. Did someone help themselves to cyanide and Fluorad from Superior Plating, lace the perfume with it, and send it to Peaches? Or did someone slip into Dagny’s bathroom to put the poison in?”
    “It sounds like you’ve ruled out Cecilia Dobson as the intended victim either way,” I observed.
    “So far we’ve got no possible motive.”
    “What about Philip Cavanaugh? I think we can all agree that he might have had a reason for wanting her out of the picture,” Elliott suggested.
    “But then why leave the perfume in the bathroom, where his sister was likely to use it?” Blades countered. “Surely, in the days following Cecilia Dobson’s murder, he had more than enough opportunity to