Chapter 5: The Phone Call From the Solicitor
The lab results came back at seven forty the next morning.
Mr.
Sterling was already dressed when Garrett called.
He was standing at the kitchen window with his first cup of tea, watching the gardener rake the gravel back into order where the police cars had turned around the night before.
"Digoxin," Garrett said.
"High concentration.
Extracted and purified — not a pharmacy dose.
Someone with knowledge prepared it."
"How much knowledge?"
"Enough.
The toxicologist said a full glass of wine would have been sufficient.
Given your current cardiac medication, it would have interacted badly.
Very quickly."
Mr.
Sterling set his cup down on the counter.
"She would have been in the room," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"She would have called for help.
Made a scene.
Held my hand while she waited."
"That's the working assumption, yes."
He looked out at the gardener.
The man was working methodically, unhurried, pulling the rake in long straight lines.
"What's the charge?"
"Attempted murd3r.
They'll formally file this morning.
Her solicitor has already been in contact — he's pushing for bail on the grounds that she has no prior record and is not a flight risk."
"Will they grant it?"
"The prosecutor is opposing it.
The evidence is strong enough that I think they'll hold her." A pause.
"Sir, there's something else.
Her solicitor made a comment this morning that I think you should know about."
"Tell me."
"He said — and I'm quoting — that his client has information she is prepared to share, in exchange for a conversation before formal charges are filed."
The rake moved in slow, even lines across the gravel.
"What kind of information?" Mr.
Sterling said.
"He didn't say.
But he used the word 'parties.' As in, other parties involved."
Mr.
Sterling was quiet for a long moment.
"She's not working alone," he said.
"That's what it sounds like, sir."
He picked up his tea again.
It had gone cold.
"Tell the prosecutor I want to know everything she offers before any agreement is made.
Nothing gets negotiated without my knowledge."
"Understood."
He ended the call and stood at the window a while longer.
Other parties.
He turned the phrase over slowly.
Eleanor had been the one in the pantry.
Eleanor's handwriting was on the label.
Eleanor's bag had held the vial.
But Eleanor was seventy-one years old and had spent the last six years managing household accounts and attending charity lunches.
She had not extracted digoxin from a pharmaceutical source on her own.
Someone had helped her.
He was still at the window when Diane came downstairs in her dressing gown, her hair loose, her face carrying the particular look of someone who had slept badly and knew it.
"You're already up," she said.
"I didn't sleep much."
She poured herself tea and leaned against the counter beside him.
"The results came back?"
"Yes."
"And?"
He told her.
She listened without interrupting, which was not her usual way.
When he finished, she held her mug in both hands and looked out at the gardener.
"Other parties," she repeated.
"Yes."
"Do you have any idea who?"
He turned to look at her.
Not suspiciously — he knew his daughter.
But carefully.
"Do you?"
She shook her head.
Then she stopped.
Then she said, very slowly: "There was a man.
Last spring, when I came to visit.
He was leaving as I arrived — coming down the front steps.
I didn't recognize him.
I assumed he was someone from your office."
"What did he look like?"
"Sixties.
Well dressed.
He had a briefcase.
He nodded at me and got into a car — a dark saloon, I don't know the make." She paused.
"Eleanor was standing in the doorway watching him leave.
She saw me notice him.
And she said — I remember this clearly because it struck me as odd — she said, 'Just an old friend of your father's.
Nothing to worry about.'"
"I wasn't expecting any visitor that day."
Diane set her mug down.
"She told me not to mention it to you.
She said you'd been tired and she didn't want you bothered with social calls."
The gardener finished one row and started another.
"I forgot about it," Diane said.
"I'm sorry.
I forgot."
"Don't be sorry.
Think.
The car — any detail at all.
A plate, a sticker, a dent."
She closed her eyes.
"There was something on the rear window.
A small sticker.
Blue, I think.
A logo of some kind — a circle, maybe a crest." She opened her eyes.
"That's all I have."
It wasn't much.
But it was something.
Mr.
Sterling reached for his phone.
"I'm going to call my solicitor."
"Now?
It's not yet eight."
"He'll answer." He found the number and pressed call.
It rang twice.
"Arthur," he said when the line picked up.
"I need you to pull every visitor record, every access log, and every piece of correspondence that passed through this house between March and June of last year.
Yes, including the household accounts Eleanor managed." A pause.
"Because I think someone helped her plan this.
And I think the evidence is somewhere in those records." Another pause.
"Yes.
Today, Arthur.
Please."
He ended the call.
Diane was watching him.
"You're not frightened," she said.
It wasn't a question — it was something closer to wonder.
"I'm angry," he said simply.
"There's a difference."
She picked up her mug again.
Outside, the gardener finished the last row, set the rake against the wall, and walked away.
May you like
The gravel was perfectly smooth.
And somewhere across the city, Eleanor was sitting in a room with her solicitor, deciding how much to offer — and how much to protect.
