The Prodigal Son(63)

“Oh, no! I might have given him an argument. I too was a secretary — his. Though twenty-four years of marriage to Tom gave me plenty of big words to use when I feel like it.”

“Was your marriage happy?”

“No, but I never thought it would be. Marriage to a Tom is better than being an old maid, Captain, if you’re not really educated. I had a husband, he gave me two lovely girls, and I have managed to eke out my housekeeping allowance by sewing. Tom only had enough love for one person — himself.” Her plain face assumed a look of ineffable satisfaction. “I willed myself to have girls. There was no way in Creation I would have given him a son to ruin.”

“You’re very candid,” Carmine said, out of his depth.

“Why not? Tom is dead, he can’t hurt me now. As soon as his estate is probated, I intend to sell this property, cash in his stocks and shares, and divide the proceeds equally among Anne, Catherine and me.”

“What happens to the other quarter of his estate?”



“He left it to the Chubb School of Divinity.”

“Can you give me an estimate of the estate’s worth?”

“About a million dollars.”

“More than I imagined,” Carmine said.

“Captain, Tom still had the first nickel he ever earned on a paper route. This house was bought for cash, no mortgage.”

“How much contact did you have with him at the banquet?”

Her greying hair, Carmine noted, was home-permed, and not very well; even at nineteen, he decided, she would never have been a pretty woman, but she would have been exactly what the divinity scholar was looking for: a housewife with no appeal for other men.

Finally she answered. “Apart from walking in with him, I only had one contact,” she said. “Typical Tom! My dinner got cold. I had to give him his B-12 shot.”

Carmine sat up so suddenly that he felt his neck crunch — the turmeric still had a way to go, obviously. “B-12 shot?”

“Yes. Tom had no acid in his stomach, which made him a dreadful eater — none of this, none of that, on and on! Meat and shellfish were difficult for him, oils and fats too. In fact, he was happiest eating jelly sandwiches or toast. And he flagged because he couldn’t absorb B-12. It had to be injected into his muscle.”

“Achlorhydria,” Carmine said slowly. “Yes, I know it.”

“A shot of B-12 perked him right up,” said the widow. “I have bottles of it, but also some single-dose ampoules so I can put one in my purse with a TB syringe. He was nervous — this was a big occasion for him, I knew that, and B-12 was like a — well, I imagine like a snort of vodka to a drinker. When he gave me the signal for a shot, I wasn’t surprised. He got up to go to the bathroom, and I followed. I went into the Ladies, broke the neck on the ampoule, sucked up the B-12, put the cap on the needle and the ampoule back in my purse.”

“Did no one see you?” Carmine asked incredulously.

“No one. The Ladies was empty and the main course was being served. As I said, mine got cold. Tom was waiting at the end of the passage in the corner, and was terribly annoyed with me because there was nowhere to put the injection. The more he hounded me, the more upset I got. In the end he snapped at me to put it in the back side of his neck — everywhere else was smothered in robes, coats, shirts, cuff links — I was in tears. He turned side on and bent down and I gave him the shot in the soft part of the back of his neck, just as he had instructed. The minute the needle was out, he went back to the table, while I tidied my face and put the syringe in my purse.”

“You threw nothing in a trash can?”

“Tom would have lynched me! I’m all too aware of law suits if a cleaner gets pricked or cuts herself on the glass. Tom was emphatic about it.”

“What color was the injection, Mrs. Tinkerman?”

Her brown eyes widened. “B-12 colored, of course.”

“And what color is B-12?” he asked patiently.

“A beautiful ruby-red,” she answered, bewildered.

“The color was the same as always?”

“Identical, as far as I could see in the light.”





And take that, you cop fools! Carmine told himself, driving away with mind whirling. Edith Tinkerman as an arch-poisoner? A sat-on academic wife deliberately chosen by an ambitious husband intent on ensuring that his children were his and that the dinner table would hold no conversational stimulation? No, it was not Edith Tinkerman. It couldn’t be! She was the poisoner’s patsy, nothing more. The administration of an injection of vitamin B-12, beautiful ruby-red cyanocobalamin.

He’d mixed his dose and colored it, then inserted it in the ampoule and melted it shut again. But had he really entrusted his plan to such a chance? How much of a chance was it? He must have known how atrociously Tinkerman bullied his wife, known too of his psychological dependence on a substance he deemed vital to his welfare, his ability to perform a task. Yes, this poisoner would have taken the chance, knowing it was no chance at all. And sure enough, Tinkerman and his wife left the table, returned with him elated and her flustered. The device Donny found in the trash was always a blind.