Bitter Business

Daniel Babbage, laying out the particulars of Lydia’s decision to sell her shares, and providing as much information about personality and family history as I could cogently serve up.
    By the time I was finished, it was dark outside and I felt nothing but emotionally spent.
    “So you obviously don’t think that the two deaths are unrelated,” Elliott concluded.
    “Do you?”
    “I’m sure it’s mathematically possible,” he offered.
    I was in no mood for discussions of mathematical possibility and told him as much.
    “I wonder if there might be something wrong in the office, in the room itself—some kind of gas leak maybe?” he speculated.
    “I’ve thought of that, too. But wouldn’t something like that have turned up at Cecilia Dobson’s autopsy?”
    “It depends on what the pathologist was looking for. The medical examiner’s office can’t test every case for everything. There are thousands of substances that, under the right circumstances, can poison you—aspirin, drain cleaner, table salt, cocaine.... They don’t have the time or the money to check for every one. Instead they test for anything that seems likely based on the physical evidence. From what you’ve told me, it sounds like the cops figured she died of an overdose.”
    “At the time it seemed the likeliest explanation. Now of course, I’m not so sure.”
    “What if both women were drug users? It would certainly explain what happened. They shared the same shit and met the same end.”
    “If you’d met Dagny, you’d realize that’s impossible,” I protested. “She was an intelligent, educated, highly charismatic business executive. I don’t know how else to say it, but Cecilia Dobson was white trash. I don’t think the two women could have had much in common.”
    “Maybe they didn’t,” countered Elliott. “But Cecilia worked for Dagny. As her secretary they worked in the same office, handled the same papers, had lunch in the same place. They may not have had much in common, maybe only one thing. But it was that one thing that killed them.”
     

12
     
    I dragged myself out of bed when my alarm went off at five-thirty. In the bedroom mirror I examined the variable landscape of my face. The bump on my forehead where Dagny’s head had struck mine during her last terrible moments was less swollen, but there were bruises under my eyes that a lack of sleep and a surplus of tears could only partially account for.
    I dressed for the office in a hurry, jumping into the first thing that I pulled from my closet. On my way out the door I stopped to stuff some ice cubes into a plastic bag. I figured I’d try holding it up to my face when I stopped at red lights. I didn’t want to take the time to do it at home. I had to get to the hospital before Daniel Babbage woke up. I didn’t want him to learn about Dagny Cavanaugh’s death by reading about it in the newspaper.
    At the hospital everything was quiet. The silence of the oncology wing was interrupted only by the intermittent beeping of unseen monitors and the much louder clatter of my high heels on the brightly polished linoleum of the floor.
    One look at Daniel and I knew that he had turned onto that last twisted curve on a piece of bad road. He seemed shrunken in his hospital bed and the jaundice of his skin was vivid against the white fabric of his pillowcase. There was the smell of decay in the air that no flowers or antiseptic could completely mask.
    I walked quietly into the room, not wanting to disturb him. Daniel’s eyes were open and unfocused, staring blankly in the general direction of the radiator. His pupils were constricted to pinpoints from whatever they were pumping into him for the pain. I pulled a chair up to his bed and took his hand in mine.
    “It’s me—Kate,” I said softly. His skin was hot to the touch. Not a good sign. On the tray in front of him was a blue plastic emesis basin and a hospital-issue box of tissues.
    “Did you bring the cigars?” he croaked, slowly turning his head toward me.
    “No. I’ll bring them by later.”
    “You’d better hurry,” he advised, trying for a smile. “There isn’t much time.”
    Tears sprang to my eyes. I busied myself by filling his cup with fresh water from a plastic jug and helping him to drink.
    “You came to tell me about Dagny, didn’t you?” he rasped, falling back onto his pillow.
    “Yes. I didn’t want you to hear about it from a stranger.”
    “Eugene came to see me last night. He’s