Page 38 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

“Good question. Whoever did it did a half-assed job, though. And what’s with the wine? Was it a mistake? Did the killer not realize that he was allergic to certain kinds, and gave him the wine as a way of administering the GHB?”

“But wouldn’t Bandeaux have been careful about the wine?”

Reed lifted a shoulder. “Maybe he didn’t know it had sulfites. And there’s a chance it wasn’t the wine. We’ll have to check with Bandeaux’s M.D., see what exactly he was allergic to.”

“Okay, but for now, let’s assume it was the wine for lack of some other substance found in his body, right?”

“Right.”

“So if it was a life-and-death matter what kind of merlot or chardonnay you guzzled,” she said, lines collecting between her plucked eyebrows, “wouldn’t you check to make sure you weren’t drinking the wrong stuff?”

“Yeah, but probably only the bottle, not the wine itself.”

“Meaning?”

“That the bottle could have been doctored—the labels switched, or someone could have poured the bad stuff in another room and carried it in to him.”

“Someone he trusted,” she amended.

“Yeah, so did we find a wine bottle on the premises?”

“Only about two hundred in the wine cellar, but they were full,” she said, bending over the desk and reaching for a file. “I think there was a bottle in the garbage; let’s see . . . I’ve got a list of everything collected . . .” She pulled a computer sheet from the file and ran a silver-tipped nail down the first couple of pages. “Here we go . . . a bottle of pinot noir. Imported. France.”

“Did we locate a cork?”

She looked again. “Yessir, we sure did.”

“Anything strange about it?”

“Not that was mentioned. What’re you getting at?”

“Have the lab check and see if there’s anything left in the bottle. I want to know what it is and see if the cork was tampered with, or if the wine matches what the label says . . . What about the lipstick on the wineglass?”

“Nothing yet.”

Reed didn’t like what he was thinking. Too many puzzle pieces didn’t fit, no matter how he tried to force them. Unless the murderer was in a hurry or a complete moron, he or she did a really bad job of making the scene appear suicide. “So what do you think?” he asked Morrisette. “Suicide or murder?” She dropped back into her desk chair, nudging her computer in the process. The blank screen flickered and the image of Josh Bandeaux slumped over his desk and very dead, appeared. “Why try to kill him twice?”

“Maybe it was suicide. I know, I know, I really don’t believe Josh Bandeaux would kill himself, but let’s run with this theory and see where it leads us—just for the sake of argument. Maybe ol’ Josh was depressed, but the wine and the GHB weren’t working fast enough, so he grabbed a knife.”

“And scratched himself up? The wounds that killed him were made from another weapon, a surgical tool or hunting knife.” Reed wasn’t buying it.

“Which we haven’t found,” she said, chewing on her lower lip as she studied the report.

“And then there’s the GHB. How does that fit in?”

“It doesn’t.” She shook her head and glanced at the computer screen. “But nothing does. If he was murdered, why would the killer, if he took the time to make it look like suicide, leave the wineglasses and bottle and traces of wine, knowing that we would find out that he was allergic to the sulfites?”

“If that’s what happened,” Reed said. “Either the murderer is dumb as a stone or she’s flaunting it, rubbing it in our nose that she got away with it.”

“She?” Morrisette repeated. “As in Mrs. Bandeaux?”

“She’s certainly on the suspect list.”

“Along with half the denizens of Savannah. Seems like everyone Bandeaux knew had a bone to pick with our boy,” she muttered. “The Bandit got around.”

Reed couldn’t argue. Morrisette was right; there were other suspects worth examining. But as the investigation wore on, he was starting to believe that Caitlyn Bandeaux was guilty as sin. He’d read a copy of the wrongful death suit Josh Bandeaux was filing against his ex-wife. Nasty stuff. In the document Bandeaux charged Caitlyn with being neglectful to the point of being an unfit mother. And neighbors had seen her coming and going; even the maid who found Bandeaux’s body swore that Caitlyn had been a regular visitor to her estranged husband’s home. Despite the fact that Bandeaux had a girlfriend. “Has anyone found Naomi Crisman?”

“Not yet. One of Bandeaux’s friends thinks she’s out of the country. Probably doesn’t even know he’s dead.”

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