Page 76 of Little Empty Promises

“Have you determined Eddy’s cause of death?”I asked.

“Not yet.As of now, there’s nothing to explain what happened to him.There were no visible wounds of any kind and no signs of a struggle, nothing to explain how he ended up in that refrigerator.”

“I’m guessing you don’t know how long Eddy’s been dead yet.”

“We aren’t sure, but Silas is working on it.”

“It makes a lot more sense to me now.I talked to Eddy’s boss today.He left a Rolex watch behind in his locker.Even if he quit his job, he would have come back for a watch like that.Now we know why he didn’t.”

“Seems so, and now to the bigger question.Where’s Rosalyn?And what’s her involvement in Eddy’s and Cordelia’s murders?”

32

When I woke the next morning, my thoughts were on Eddy, how he died, why he died, and whether it was at the hands of Rosalyn.Was she responsible for the two murders, and if so, was she on the run?I believed she was, and given Foley had put out an APB the night before, I hoped it wouldn’t be long before they found her.

I stepped out of the shower, toweled off, grabbed my cell phone, and texted Simone and Hunter, asking them to meet me at the office in an hour.As I set the phone back down on the nightstand, my focus shifted to the book I’d taken from Cordelia’s house.The Agatha Christie novel,The Pale Horse, which held Cordelia’s snooping notes, was one I’d read decades earlier, but I’d forgotten a large portion of the plot.

Staring down at it now, a thought occurred to me.Was it possible Cordelia chose the book for a reason?Did it hold significance?Could it be tied to her murder somehow?

I altered my plans, canceling the meeting with Simone and Hunter, and letting them know I’d reschedule with them later in the day.I slipped into a pair of comfy pajamas and returned to bed, spending the next several hours poring over the classic novel.

InThe Pale Horse, several residents in a quaint village in London were found dead.The deaths seemed to be of natural causes at first, but many of the deceased had one thing in common.Prior to their death, their hair had started falling out.In the end, as it was with many of Agatha’s murder mysteries, the reader learns the victims had been poisoned.

Thallium, which had no taste, no color, and was water-soluble, was almost impossible to detect.A poison so toxic, it had been banned in the United States since 1965 for household use and since 1975 for commercial use.

Given it was difficult to get one’s hands on the poison nowadays, it would be a stretch to think anyone had murdered a person in such a way.But it hadn’talwaysbeen illegal—in fact, it had one been the main ingredient in rat poison.

My mind was racing, connecting several dots at once:

The book.

The notes contained within it.

The fact there were no signs of a struggle when Eddy was found.

The fact it wasn’t clear how he died.

The shelf in Eddy and Rosalyn’s shed with a distinct square impression, leading me to believe something on it had been removed not too long ago.

Thallium may have been banned since the mid-’60s, but Rosalyn’s house was built much earlier.It was possible the people who owned the home prior to Rosalyn and Eddy had kept thallium-based rat poison in the shed and had never disposed of it before selling their house.

To test my theory, I needed some advice.I messaged Silas, asking if he could meet me at Rosalyn’s house.He was hard at work on Eddy’s autopsy but agreed to break away in a couple of hours.We set a time, and I made a new plan.I called Hunter, asking her to find out who owned the house prior to Rosalyn and Eddy.She got back to me in minutes with an answer—Lorena and Alexander Potts.

Since selling their home, Lorena and Alexander had moved to a retirement community, which wasn’t far from my house.I made the drive over, and when I reached the door, it was opened by a short, curly, gray-haired woman, wearing a brown apron with wine bottles all over it.She had a sweet smile and an inquisitive look on her face.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello, my name is Georgiana Germaine.Are you Lorena Potts?”

“I sure am.”

“I understand you sold your house to Rosalyn and Eddy Westwood.”

“We did sell the house to them, yes.Nice couple … well, Rosalyn was an absolute charmer.The husband, not so much.Had a bit of a foul mouth on him.Why do you ask?”

“I am a private investigator working on Cordelia Bennett’s case, your former neighbor.”

Lorena frowned.“Yes, I read all about it in the paper.What a horrible thing to happen to such a nice woman.What can I do for you?”

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