Page 9 of So Bleak

“Yeah, what’s with that? Do people not realize there are other motives for murder?”

“I’m sure they do, but sex sells.”

She scoffed. “It would be nice if they thought that maybe they shouldn’t sell this kind of sex.”

“Well, fuck ‘em. They want to look all smug and pat themselves on the back for being smart, that’s fine with me. At least they only get to talk about things after the fact instead of being involved in the hunt for these criminals.”

“Thank God for small blessings.”

She sighed, but this time with relief. She was grateful to have Michael to talk to. She couldn’t really talk about work with David. Aside from the fact that most of the time, she really couldn’t talk about work with him since it involved an ongoing case or sealed court records, he couldn’t understand what it was like to hunt serial killers. He was supportive, of course, but law enforcement was one of those jobs you didn’t understand unless you worked it.

Either way, it was a load off of her chest to talk with someone who shared her views on the bullshit the media always peddled in these cases. With that off of her mind, she could focus on the case at hand.

“So what are we walking into?” she asked Michael.

“Victim is Harold Grimes, food columnist and author. He was doing a blind review of Sushi Amaterasu when he jumped up like he was choking, ran around the restaurant like crazy for about thirty seconds, then fell down dead.”

“Jesus.”

"Yeah, we never get the cut-and-dry ones, do we?"

“If we did, we’d be local police. But hey, at least we’d actually have badges.”

“You stop it. That cake was delicious.”

She smiled. “I’m glad you liked it. Do we have a cause of death for Grimes?”

“We’re waiting on a tox report, but the preliminary guess is a severe allergic reaction.”

She lifted her eye. “It can’t be an allergic reaction, or we wouldn’t have been called.”

“Well, the hypothesis is that someone introduced a foreign substance into his meal that caused the reaction. Or they just straight up poisoned him.”

“And this is like another case you said?”

“Yeah, Eleanor Crestwood. Also a food columnist, but in her case an online blog. She died at Cucina Toscana last week. You didn’t see it on the news?”

Faith vaguely remembered hearing about a woman who had died at a restaurant, but it was sandwiched between two lengthy reports on the West case, so she didn’t pay attention to it. “I don’t remember what they said. I can see the connection, though. Two high-profile food critics died the same way at two different restaurants within a week. Sounds like what we do.”

“I feel a need to point out that what we do is find people who do stuff like that. We don’t actually do it ourselves.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Obvious.”

He looked at her quizzically. “Lieutenant Obvious. Why was I demoted?”

“David’s Captain Obvious.”

“What? Why? I’ve known you longer than him.”

“Well, he’s cuter than you.”

“Speak for yourself. Ellie says I’m adorable.”

She laughed. “Good for you. Do we have a confirmed COD for Crestwood?”

“Definitely poison. They’re still waiting for the tox report to know exactly what killed her, but they think it’s something called a sodium channel blocker.”

“A what?”

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