Page 52 of So Bleak

Clive laughed nervously. “Yeah, I’ll bet. I’ll drink something if you don’t mind.”

“Be my guest. It’s your house.”

He poured himself a shot of scotch. Faith noted the brand on the bottle. It was a nice brand, but ordinarily not too expensive. That particular bottle, however, was thirty years old. That took it from nice but not too pricey to the sort of stuff high rollers drank at six figure tables in Vegas.

“You’re living the high life here, aren’t you?” Faith noted.

Clive downed the whiskey in one gulp and said defensively, “It’s not a crime to enjoy life, is it?”

“To enjoy life? No. To take life? Yes.”

Clive swallowed and poured himself another shot. Faith noticed his hands were trembling. “Well, I didn’t take anyone’s life, so I really don’t know what you guys want me to tell you.”

“How about we start with what you were doing at those restaurants hours before Eleanor Crestwood, Harold Grimes, Lila Vance and Samuel Klein died of poisoning?”

“I was doing my job. I’m the health inspector.”

“Kind of odd that you would have just happened to be at those restaurants the same days those victims were murdered.”

“No it isn’t. The restaurant employees were all there too. So were plenty of diners.”

“Yes, but none of them were at all four places the same day as all four of the victims. That, Mr. Benson, is only you.”

"So? I usually do my work earlier in the day, so I'm not caught in the dinner rush."

"That makes sense. So, I reviewed the logs from the Health department on our way over here. Isn't it crazy that you happened to be inspecting all four restaurants almost exactly four hours before our victims were killed each time? We have you visiting Cucina Toscana at five o’clock. Then Eleanor Crestwood dies at nine o’clock. We have you visiting Sushi Amaterasu at four o’clock. Then Harold Grimes dies just after eight. Next is Lila Vance. You inspected Café Toulouse at two o’clock. She’s dead right at six. Finally, you visit the Prime Cut Steakhouse at three-thirty, almost exactly four hours before Samuel Klein kicks the bucket.”

Clive looked ashen. “I didn’t know that.”

“We think you do,” Faith countered. “I really don’t believe in coincidence, Mr. Benson. Once or twice, sure, I can believe it. But all four times? That’s really stretching my imagination.”

Clive sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “Look, I… I really don’t know what you want me to say.”

“The truth would be nice,” Michael said drily.

“I don’t know! I mean…” he lifted his hands and let them drop. “I know this looks bad, but…”

“It looks very bad, Clive,” Faith said. “Can I call you Clive?”

He chuckled anxiously. “Does it matter?”

“Not really. See, we have all four victims poisoned by a unique sodium channel blocker. Do you know what a sodium channel blocker is, Clive?”

“No.”

“Me either, to be honest. But I know it’s poison, and I know it killed all four of those people. I also know that poison sometimes takes a while to work. Sometimes it hits you right away, and sometimes it takes a few hours or even a few days. See, this is where the timing starts to look a lot less coincidental and a lot more convenient. Maybe this poison takes four hours to work.

“But I wasn’t there when they were… I mean, we weren’t at the restaurants at the same time.”

“So maybe you poisoned something else. Maybe you found the food set aside for their table and slipped it in there.”

“But how would I know they were coming to the restaurant? And how would I know where they were going to be seated?”

Faith controlled her reaction. That was the problem. They didn’t have answers to those questions. All they had was the suspicious timing of Clive’s visits. That wasn’t nearly enough to charge him with the crime. They needed him to reveal something now, something that would give them enough to take action. At the very least, they needed something that could justify continuing to pursue Clive as a person of interest.

But they had none of that going in, so they had to rely on intimidation. It was a crappy way to work, and Faith hated that they had become so desperate. But they were desperate, and as the saying went, that called for a desperate measure.

“Those are all great questions, Clive,” Faith said coldly. “How did you know?”

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