I Is for Innocent

gasping for breath. He took two steps and went down. He was gone almost at once. We called the paramedics and we tried mouth-to-mouth, but it was pointless."
    "Mrs. Shine, I don't know how to say this, but is there any way you might consider having the body autopsied? I know the subject is painful and you may not feel there's any necessity, but I'd feel better if we were really sure about the cause of death."
    "What's the nature of your concern?"
    "I'm wondering if someone, uhm, tampered with his food or medications."
    Her gaze settled on my face with a look of almost luminous clarity. "You think he was murdered."
    "I'd like to have it ruled out. It may be a long shot, but we'll never know otherwise. Once he goes in the ground..."
    "I understand," she said. "I'd like to talk it over with Louise and perhaps Morley's brother, who's arriving tonight."
    "Could I call you later this evening? I'm really sorry to have to press. I know it's distressing, but with services tomorrow, time is very short."
    "Don't apologize," she said. "Of course you may call. At this point, I don't suppose an autopsy would do any harm."
    "I'd like to have a conversation with the coroner's office to alert them to the situation, but I don't want to do anything without your permission."
    "I have no objections."
    "To what?" Louise asked as she came around the corner with a fully laden tea tray. She placed the tray on the coffee table. Dorothy filled her in, summing up the possibilities as succinctly as she'd summed up the wrongful death suit.
    "Oh, let her go ahead with it," Louise said. She filled a cup and passed it over to me. "If you discuss it with Frank, you'll never hear the end of it."
    Dorothy smiled. "I thought the same thing myself, but I didn't want to say so." To me she said, "Go ahead and do whatever you think best."
    "Thank you."
    Detective Burt Walker, of the coroner's bureau, was a man in his early forties with receding auburn hair and a close-clipped beard and mustache in a blend of red and blond. His face was round, his complexion ruddy, his coloring suggestive of Scandinavian heritage. His glasses were small and round with thin metal frames. He wasn't heavyset, but he looked like a man who was becoming more substantial as the years went on. The weight looked good on him. He wore a brown tweed jacket, beige chinos, blue shirt, a red tie with white polka dots. While I detailed the circumstances surrounding Morley's death, he leaned an elbow on his desk and variously nodded and rubbed his forehead. I verbalized my suspicions, but I couldn't tell if he was taking me seriously or simply being polite.
    When I finished, he stared at me. "So what are you saying?" I shrugged, embarrassed when it came right down to articulating my hunch. "That he actually died from some kind of poisoning."
    "Or maybe it was a poison that precipitated his fatal heart attack," Burt said.
    "Right."
    "Well. It's not inconceivable," he said slowly. "Sounds like he could have been dosed. I don't guess there's any chance he might have done it himself, despondent, depressed about something."
    "Not really. His wife does have cancer, but they'd been married forty years and he knew she depended on him. He'd never abandon her. They were very devoted from what I gather. If he was poisoned, it'd almost have to be something he ingested without knowing."
    "You have a theory about the chemical agent involved?"
    I shook my head. "I don't know anything about that stuff. I've talked to his wife about his last couple of days and she can't pinpoint anything in particular. Nothing overt or obvious, at any rate. She said his color was bad, but I really didn't quiz her about what she meant by that."
    "Couldn't have been anything corrosive or you'd know right off," he said. He sighed, shaking his head. "I don't know what to tell you. I'm not going to ask a toxicologist to run any kind of 'general unknown.' You got nothing to work with. A request like that is too broad. You look at the number and variety of drugs, pesticides, industrial products... man oh man... even the substances you handle casually at home. From what you're telling me – I mean, let's assume you're right, just for the sake of argument – the problem's compounded by the fact he was in such poor shape."
    "You knew Morley?"
    He laughed. "Yeah, I knew Morley. Great old guy, but he's living in the fifties when everybody thought drinking a fifth a day and smoking three packs of cigarettes was just something you did