The Groaning Board

she
hated it. Hated the way it made her feel. Vulnerable.
    Izz shrieked and literally flew over
the coffee table, arriving at the door just as Silvestri opened it. She then
leaped and cavorted until he picked her up and let her bathe his face with wet
kisses.
    “Metzger’s been trying to reach you,”
Wetzon said, leaving her half-eaten bagel and limping into the foyer. “Foot’s
asleep.” Silvestri hadn’t moved.
    “He found me.” Still he didn’t move.
Just kept looking at her as if he weren’t really seeing her. He set Izz down.
    She thought: Rita told him. “What is
it?” She touched his face, felt the bristles of his beard. He gave her back her
hand, but not before he kissed her palm. “What?” she said again.
    “Sheila is officially a homicide.”
Silvestri turned away from her and hung his jacket over the back of a chair,
then slipped out of the shoulder holster, rolled it around his gun. ‘I’m beat,”
he said. His voice was hoarse. He rubbed his eyes. Grim lines had settled in
around his mouth.
    “You look terrible.” She followed him
into the kitchen and watched him take a beer from the fridge. “How did she
die?”
    He took a hefty swallow. His eyes
were bloodshot. “In agony,” he said.

Chapter Eighteen

     
     
     
    “Sheila was
poisoned.” Silvestri popped the cap and tilted his head back, drinking a long swallow.
    “How?” Wetzon took four eggs, goat
cheese, and some leftover roasted zucchini from the fridge. She filled the
kettle with cold water.
    “They don’t know. Something she ate.
It took about six hours to kill her.” He was staring at Wetzon as if it was something
she’d done. “She went through hell.”
    “She didn’t call anyone—?” Wetzon
dropped a chunk of butter into the pan, lit the gas, then with a wire whisk she
whipped the eggs into a froth.
    Silvestri flinched. He took another
long swallow. “By the time she knew it was more than stomach flu, she may not
have been able to think, let alone move.”
    “There was a plate sitting in the
sink.” With the buttfer sizzling, Wetzon poured the eggs into the hot pan and
began rocking it. “The faucet was dripping. I guess it washed the crumbs away.”
    “Cornmeal.”
    “Cornmeal?” She nudged the omelet
gently with a spatula to cook the center.
    “She had half-digested cornmeal in
her—”
    “My God, the muffins.”
    “What muffins?”
    “In her freezer, Silvestri. There was
a foil package of muffins.” She sliced two bagels and put them in the toaster
oven.
    “The M.E. sent someone over this
morning and cleaned out everything from the freezer, the fridge, and the
cupboards. They’ll find whatever it was.”
    “It’s in the corn muffins.” She
sprinkled the goat cheese over the omelet, folded it in half, and divided it
between two plates.
    “So you’re a toxicologist now, are
you?” A trace of a smile flickered across his eyes. He picked up the plates and
brought them to the dining table.
    Wetzon buttered the bagels, carried
them and the coffee to the table. “I know I can help, Silvestri, if you let
me.” She went back to the kitchen for the mugs.
    He dug into his omelet. “This is
good, Les. Didn’t know you could cook.”
    “There’s a lot you don’t know about
me,” she said with more sharpness than she meant. She concentrated on her
omelet.
    “Oh?” He stopped eating. “Like what?”
    She thought of Bill Veeder. Her
aborted flirtation. “I ran into Rita today.”
    “Oh, yeah? Where?” He began eating
again.
    “I was having a drink with a potential
client,” she said glibly. Liar, liar, liar. “Rita was with a colleague....”
Silves-tri was staring down at his plate. He’d tuned her out.
    They finished eating without
speaking, and she took the ernpty plates and put them in the sink.
    When she came back, he was ranging
around the room oblivious of Izz’s dancing attendance.
    “Goddammit, Silvestri, I’ve had it.
You have to tell me '''hat the hell is going on with you.”
    He stopped pacing to stare at her. A
chill like a ghostly Prescience settled over her. In his eyes she saw she was a
stranger. Finally, he said, “Sit down, Les. There’re some things I have to talk
to you about.”
    “Sounds ominous.” She gave him a
nervous smile. Filling the mugs with coffee, she handed him one.
    He took the mug but didn’t return her
smile. “You’re going to take this personally, but it’s something I have to do.
I can’t do it here.”
    Trying to follow him, she