Home for the Haunting(66)
“Just like that?” I asked.
He chuckled and squinted at me. “You probably watch those TV shows where cops have the resources and independence to go off and investigate crimes for as long as it takes to discover the truth, right?” He gestured toward Annette, who had finished her beer and was now playing with a few grains of salt on the tabletop. “D’you ever wonder why Annette’s here on her day off?”
“Because the ME ruled it a suicide or accidental overdose,” Annette volunteered. “But I don’t believe it.”
“A lot of times, you have to close a case even when you don’t feel good about it,” continued Sheldon as he rose from the table, gathered our cans, crushed them one by one with calloused hands, and put them in a big blue recycling bin. “That’s just the way it is. Unless you’re like Annette here, and you’re willing to go out on a limb, on your own time, and risking your own neck. Want my advice?”
He leaned against the counter and faced us. “Both of you? Stay out of it. The world has moved on. Some tragedies are meant to be endured, not understood.”
Chapter Seventeen
As Annette drove us home, my phone buzzed. It was Caleb calling, asking whether he could come over tonight for a haircut. He was so standoffish lately that it made my heart happy when he asked me for things. Not for the first time, I wondered how that worked, exactly. I was guessing it was some hormonal mechanism that helped ensure we didn’t eat our young.
“Sure, I’d be happy to. Want me to pick you up?”
“No, I’ll get a ride, thanks. See you later.”
I hung up and turned back to Annette. “So, you think Linda was murdered. Why?”
“I don’t trust we know the full story of what she was doing there.”
“You doubt her brother’s account?”
“I don’t think he killed her, if that’s what you’re asking. I find it hard to believe they were doing this exposure therapy, but then she stuck around and—what?—took a bunch of pills? And if so, why would she do it in the shed? It appears the body was moved, which would mean someone else was involved, and would explain the lack of forensic evidence. But I’ve had crime scene folks look through every part of that house, and they haven’t found anything, either.”
“The medical examiner determined Linda died of opiate overdose?”
“Yes.”
“The guy who found her says it looked like she was allergic to opioids.”
“How would he know?”
“I guess he’d seen a similar reaction in a frat brother once who was on pain pills.”
Annette was silent for a few moments while she got on the freeway. “Thing is, people don’t kill themselves by ingesting things they know they’re allergic to. It’s weird but true,” she finally said. “And I think Linda Lawrence knew her way around drugs enough to understand what she was doing.”
“That’s what I was thinking as well.”
“So let’s say she was murdered by someone who gave her the pills. Could be a relative stranger, but it was probably someone she trusted.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Ever try to give a pill to a dog or a cat? It’s not easy to make someone swallow something. There was no bruising around Linda’s face or mouth, so we can assume she took the pills more or less voluntarily. It could have just been a stupid mistake. Or maybe someone told her the pills were something else, or that they were a smaller dose than they really were.”
“Okay, but we still have no idea who that person might be, much less why they wanted an apparently harmless woman dead.”
“Let’s approach this logically. Most people are killed for stupid reasons: a nasty comment in a bar, an episode of road rage over a parking spot. But those kinds of murders, which by their nature are spur-of-the-moment, usually involve weapons readily at hand: guns, knives, or blunt objects. Not pills.”
“Fair enough.”
“That means Linda’s murder was planned. Let’s assume we’re not dealing with some kind of sociopath who kills at random to fill a sick need.”
“Sure we can assume that?”
“It’s a reasonable assumption. For one thing, serial killers are rare. And serial killers who use poison are rarer still. Since there are no other cases to suggest Linda’s death was part of a larger pattern, I’m going to back-burner the serial killer explanation.”
“Makes sense. Go on.”
“So that leaves only a certain number of motives: greed, jealousy, covering up a crime.”
“Did anyone profit from Linda’s death?” I asked.