Page 18 of So Bleak

“I see your office and raise you literally anywhere else. How about my place?”

Michael didn’t answer right away. Faith looked sideways at him, and he said, “I was trying to think of something funny to say, but I’m too frazzled to think right now, so I’ll just say yes.”

“Well, I need you to be able to think, so let’s get you some food.”

“Sounds great to me.”

They grabbed sandwiches from Sammie’s, a local sub place that was popular with the Field Office and headed to Faith’s apartment. Michael ate half of his sandwich on the drive over and was in a better mood when they arrived. Faith gave Turk some food then joined Michael at the table. He had already finished his sandwich by the time she sat down.

“You should try to take a breath or two in between bites,” she suggested.

“No can do. Why breathe when you can enjoy a legitimate Philly Cheese Steak instead?”

Faith shook her head. “If I wanted cheese whiz and ground beef, I’d pour a can of the stuff in a blender with Turk’s dog food.”

“How can you say that? You’re from Philly.”

“You’re from California, and you don’t like pineapple on pizza.”

“What? That’s Hawaiian pizza.”

“Is it? I thought that was a California thing.”

He sighed. “Eat your sandwich. Your brain needs fuel.”

“I won’t argue with you there.”

While Faith dug into her Italian club, Michael summarized the case so far. “Okay, so we have two food critics, both dead in restaurants they were reviewing. Crestwood for sure is known for being scathing. It looks likes Grimes was a little less well-known, but he was considered tough but fair according to the sources I found.”

“When did you look up our victims?”

“While you were making Turk food.”

“Damn. You work fast.”

“Thank God for the Internet. Anyway, the vics were in the same line of work, but they don’t appear to have known each other. However, it’s likely that a lot of people knew both of them. I’m thinking we make a list of restaurants that both of them reviewed negatively, bonus points if those reviews were recent and extra bonus points if there’s been a decline in popularity at any of the restaurants.”

“Good thinking,” Faith agreed. “I’m still a little skeptical about the poison, though.”

“How so?”

“How do two people at two different restaurants get poisoned the same way at the same relative time? And if it’s the appetizer or the drink poisoning them, why didn’t the poison show up on their dishes?”

“We’re still waiting on the lab for that result.”

Faith shook her head. “We’re waiting on the lab to know what the exact poison was, but they were able to tell that both victims were poisoned with the same substance. They should have been able to match that poison to the physical evidence recovered at the scene. They didn’t, ergo, they weren’t poisoned via their food or drinks.”

“So how were they poisoned?”

Faith leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I think that’s the million-dollar question. We can’t figure out what the poison is. We’re stuck waiting on the lab results. So I think we need to focus on how the poison could have been delivered.”

“How do we do that?”

She thought a moment. “I’m not sure.”

Michael sighed. “Yeah, me either.”

She thought another moment, then said, “So that puts us back to the personal connection. We should look into the professional connection—anyone who’s been poorly reviewed by both of them—and the personal one.”

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