In Death 24 - Innocent in Death

bit in, then just groaned. “Oh, God, this is really…Are there more?”
    “Maybe.”
     
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    “I’d better space it out. I think this is the chocolate equivalent of Zeus.” On another bite she turned to read the data. “Son of a bitch! I fucking knew I was right.”
    “About…” He scanned the data. “One Harmon, Quella, female, age fifty-eight of Taos, New Mexico. Two marriages, two divorces, no offspring. Occupation, artist.”
    “What kind of artist?”
    Cocking his head, he continued to read the data. “Specializes in fashion and jewelry, stone and leatherwork. Leatherwork. Ah.”
    “Ah, my ass. Bull’s-fucking-eye. If that’s not the ricin source, Iwill kiss the hideous lips of Summerset. The castor beans, they still grow wild in arid areas. I bet New Mexico has some arid areas. And I bet a leather artist living out there uses the oil in leather preparation.”
    “Certainly that may be, and how does Quella Harmon connect-or are we still using
    ‘intersect’-with your victims?”
    “By being the maternal aunt of Allika Straffo. Means,” Eve stated. “Closing right in on means. Computer, search date books on each Straffo individual in evidence for any travel to New Mexico over the past six months. No, amend. A full year. And/or any mention during that time period in same of Harmon, Quella, to New York.”
    Acknowledged. Working…
    “You think Straffo took a sample of ricin from this woman, with or without her knowledge, carried it back to New York, then used it to poison Foster.”
    “I damn well do.”
    “All right, means I’ll give you, Eve, but you’ve lost motive again, haven’t you? Unless the computer reports that there was contact with this Harmon in the last couple of months, it would have been prior to Allika’s affair with Williams, prior to Foster having knowledge of it.”
    “Uh-huh. Parallel lines.”
    Task complete. Straffo, Oliver, Allika, and Rayleen traveled by commercial shuttle from New York to Taos, New Mexico, on November twenty-six. Returned to New York by commercial shuttle on November thirty…
    “That’s before Allika took up with Williams, according to their statements. Isn’t it?”
    “Yeah.” But Eve was smiling grimly.
     
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    “Then unless Straffo is a sensitive with psychic tendencies, why would he transport a poisonous substance on a commercial carrierbefore his wife strayed?”
    “Maybe it wasn’t a poisonous substance at that time, maybe it was just a bag of beans.
    But it’s all about planning and possibilities. Opportunities. Curiosity.”
    As she spoke, she walked back, circling the board again. Then she continued to pin photos, lists, notes, data. “Computer, print out displayed data. Hard copy.”
    Acknowledged…
    And now Roarke circled, studied, scanned while she went to retrieve the printout.
    He could see she was building something. It was the way she’d arranged the pieces on the board, how she continued to arrange them. Into some sort of pattern she, obviously, saw in her head. Or felt in her gut.
    Her mind, he knew, was labyrinthine and linear, fluid, flexible, and stubbornly rigid. He could and did admire it without ever fully understanding its workings. Her gut, he believed absolutely, was close to infallible.
    He stepped back and let his own mind clear, refocus, in an attempt to see what she was moving toward.
    When he did, his shock was instant. His denial automatic. “You can’t be serious.”
    “You see it?”
    “I see what you’re stitching together, what pattern you’ve made out of it. But I can’t put my head around why you’d aim in that direction.”
    “What? You don’t think a ten-year-old girl can be a stone-cold killer?”
    She said it casually as she pinned Harmon’s photo and data to the side of the triangle she’d made out of the Straffos. “I murdered at eight,” she reminded him.
    “Not murder, not close to it. You saved your own life, and destroyed a monster. You’re talking about a child deliberately and coldly planning and carrying out the murder of two adults.”
    “Maybe more than that.” Eve reached into her file, took out the ID photo of Trevor Straffo she’d already printed. And pinned it in the center of the triangle.
    “Christ Jesus, Eve.”
     
    250
    “Maybe he fell down the steps. Maybe he did. Maybe he had help. Maybe it was a tragic accident, which involved his sister.”
    Her gaze was pinned now, to Rayleen Straffo’s violet eyes. “Excited, running, a couple of