Page 42 of Wham Line
“It’ll take some time,” the sheriff said.
“It had to be poison,” I said.“You saw what happened to Bobby.He tried to give her mouth to mouth.”
“Why do you think someone would want to poison her?”the sheriff asked.
By that point, Bobby had emerged from the bathroom in a hoodie and joggers.“They weren’t trying to poison her.They were trying to poison Dash.”
I hesitated.“Okay, yes, maybe.”
The sheriff hung her baseball cap on her knee and studied Bobby.“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
That little tic touched the corner of her mouth again, and the sheriff seemed to make a point of not looking at me.
I decided to take the high ground.“The problem is: if someonewastrying to kill Sparkie, I don’t know why.I mean, it’s probably the usual reasons: she knew something, or she saw something.She followed Mal out to the alley, remember?She might even have been a witness.”
“We’ll look into it,” the sheriff said.
That sounded like code forthis could take months and months.“But this is good news, right?I mean, Indira couldn’t have been involved in the poisoning, so now you know she’s innocent.”
“Dash, I’m not going to comment on an ongoing investigation.”
“What?What does that mean?Sheriff, she was at the station when this happened.”
Bobby said, “Dash.”
“What about Larry?They were arguing right before Sparkie died.Have you talked to him?”
“From what I understand,” the sheriff said, “Sparkie didn’t have anything to eat or drink while he was with her.”
“But he could have found a way.He could have snuck into the kitchen after he left.”
“And poisoned her food in front of the kitchen staff?”
My cheeks heated.“What about Talmage, then?”
“I thought she was talking to you.”
“She could have done it before she came out of the kitchen.There was enough time.”
The sheriff nodded, but she didn’t say anything.The faint smell of leather rose from her coat.The room was too warm now, and the sunlight glancing off the chrome bedrail made me want to squint.
“And Jethro was there,” I said, but even to me, it sounded like a petulant afterthought—like I couldn’t just let it go.“The staff knew him.Maybe he had some story about why he was supposed to be in the kitchen.About helping.”
The sheriff waited a beat too long before saying, “That’s a possibility.”
I swallowed a scream.“Yeah, it’s a possibility.Lots of great possibilities.So, I don’t understand why you won’t let Indira go.”
“Dash, I know that you care about Indira.You’re a good friend, and you’re loyal.She’s lucky to have you in her corner.But my job is to find whoever did this—”
“It’s not Indira!”
The sheriff took the baseball cap off her knee.The moment grew longer and longer until, when she spoke again, her voice was low and hard.“I have to go by the evidence.Right now, I’m trying to figure out if the gun we found in her flat is the murder weapon.I can’t assume that these two incidents are connected.If you want to talk about possibilities, then one possibility is that these events are unrelated.If they are, then I’ve got two separate killers I need to track down.And another possibility is that Indira had an accomplice.”
I opened my mouth.And then I shut it again.Until now, the fact that the sheriff was seriously considering Indira as a suspect hadn’t seemed real.Yes, I knew things looked bad.Yes, I’d seen Indira in the alley.Yes, I’d been there when they’d found the gun.But some part of me had still believed that it was all a misunderstanding that would be cleared up in a few hours.I mean, this wasIndira.Sheriff Acosta had bought a birthday cake from Indira for her niece a few weeks ago.Indira had made cupcakes for the station on Bobby’s birthday.She and Dahlberg were in a wine club together.
“You mean Nalini,” I said; my voice sounded surprisingly normal somehow.“You think Nalini is helping Indira.Or maybe you think Indira is covering for her.”
