From the Corner of His Eye

continued in his characteristic drone, a tone at odds with the colorful content of his speech: "A man takes one look at his wife's body, starts to sweat harder than a copulating hog, spews like a frat boy at the end of a long beer-chugging contest, and chucks till he chucks up blood-that's not the response of your average murderer."
        "Murder? They say the railing was rotten."
        "It was. But maybe that's not the whole story. Anyway, we know the usual poses these guys strike, the attitudes they think are deceptive and clever. Most of them are so obvious, they might as well just stick their willy in a light socket and save us a lot of trouble. This, however, is a new approach. Tends to make you want to believe in the poor guy."
        "Hasn't the sheriff's department already reached a determination of accidental death?" Parkhurst asked. "They're good men, good cops, every last one of them," said Vanadiuin, "and if they've got more pity in them than I do, that's a virtue, not a shortcoming. What could Mr. Cain have taken to make himself vomit?"
        Listening to you long enough would do it, Junior thought.
        Parkhurst protested: "But if the sheriffs department thinks it's an accident"
        "You know how we operate in this state, Doctor. We don't waste 'A energy fighting over jurisdiction. We cooperate. The sheriff can de not to put a lot of his limited resources into this, and no one will blame him. He can call it an accident and close the case, and he won't get his hackles up if we, at the state level, still want to poke around a little.
        Even though the detective was on the wrong track, Junior was beginning to feel aggrieved. As any good citizen, he was willing, even eager to cooperate with responsible policemen who conducted their investigation by the book. This Thomas Vanadium, however, in spite of his monotonous voice and drab appearance, gave off the vibes of a fanatic.
        Any reasonable person would agree that the line between legitimate and harassment was hair-thin.
        Vanadium asked Jim Parkhurst, "Isn't there something called ipecac?"
        "Yes. The dried root of a Brazilian plant, the ipecacuanha. It induces vomiting with great effectiveness. The active ingredient is a powdered white alkaloid called emetine."
        This is an over-the-counter drug, isn't it?"
        "Yes. In syrup form. It's a good item for your home medicine chest, in case your child ever swallows poison and you need to purge it from him quickly."
        Could have used a bottle of that myself last November."
        "You were poisoned?"
        In that slow, flat delivery with which Junior was becoming increasingly impatient, Detective Vanadium said, "We all were, Doctor. It was another election year, remember? More than once during that campaign, I could've chugged ipecac. What else would work if I wanted to have a good vomit?"
        "Well… apomorphine hydrochloride."
        "Harder to get than ipecac."
        "Yes. Sodium chloride will work, too. Common salt. Mix enough of it with water, and it's generally effective."
        "Harder to detect than ipecac or apomorphine hydrochloride."
        "Detect?" Parkhurst asked.
        "In the spew."
        "In the vomitus, you mean?"
        "Sorry. I forgot we're in polite company. Yes, I mean in the vomitus.
        "Well, the lab could detect abnormally high salt levels, but that wouldn't matter in court. He could say he ate a lot of salty foods."
        "Salt water would be too cumbersome anyway. He'd have to drink a lot of it shortly before he heaved, but he was surrounded by cops with good reason to keep an eye on him. Does ipecac come in capsule form?"
        "I suppose anyone could fill some empty gelatin capsules with the syrup," said Parkhurst. "But-" "Roll your own, so to speak. Then he could palm a few of them, swallow 'em without water, and the reaction would be delayed maybe long enough, until the capsules dissolved in his stomach."
        The affable physician sounded as though he was at last beginning to find the detective's unlikely theory and persistent questioning to be tedious. "I seriously doubt that a dose of ipecac would produce such a violent response as in this case-not pharyngeal hemorrhage, for God's sake. Ipecac is a safe product."
        "If he took triple or quadruple the usual dose-"
        "Wouldn't matter," Parkhurst insisted. "A lot has pretty much the same effect as a