Page 23 of Dirty Looks

When we got to the third floor we walked down a wide hallway to the north wing of the house.

“I don’t know a lot about kids,” Martinez said. “But this doesn’t really seem like a kid-friendly environment.”

The house was such a stark contrast to Everett and Jenny’s home it was hard to imagine the two families even being related.

There were still expensive paintings on the walls and sculptures posed in front of the expanse of windows that showcased the rolling pastures, but when Plank led us into the first bedroom on the left I thought that maybe visiting Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t be so bad after all.

The room was a little girl’s dream. It was pink, with ruffles and lace and innocence, and it was more than three times the size of the bedroom I shared with Jack. There were six beds, all with pink-and-white canopies, and there was a life-sized dollhouse with a full designer kitchen. There was a wall-sized screen and gaming consoles, and a simulation golf game. The balcony was expansive and looked out over the rolling green hills and white stables.

“Wow,” I said. “Every kid’s dream.”

“There’s an identical one on the opposite side of the hall for the boys,” Plank said. “It has a simulation batting cage. Apparently this entire wing is for the grandkids. The room next door is an arcade, and there’s an indoor pool at the end of the hall with a splash pad.”

“I guess there comes a point when you have so much money you run out of things to spend it on,” I said.

“Whoever thought of putting a swimming pool on the third floor?” Martinez asked.

“I think they thought of everything when they built this place,” Plank said. “Mrs. Lidle was found here.” He pointed to a bed in the middle of a row of three along the back wall.

I immediately pulled a pair of gloves out of my bag and handed Martinez an extra pair.

“Two disturbed beds,” Martinez said, pointing to the adjacent bed.

“Makes sense,” I said. “If she was taking care of the granddaughter she’d stay up here with her. Though I’m surprised. You’d think she’d hire a nurse or send someone else to take care of her.”

“Jenny said Kitty was a very sweet woman, at least when it came to family,” Martinez said. “Maybe she’s hands on.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “No sign of the chicken noodle soup bowl, but there’s a tea set. Two cups. One is empty. The other still has tea in it. Looks full.”

“The trace of the drug you found in Evie’s system…” Martinez began. “Could a larger dose have been given to incapacitate either or both of them?”

I frowned in thought. It seemed too simple. “One of the side effects of promethazine is respiratory depression. But I’ve only ever read studies about it affecting those under two years of age. I’ve never heard of an adult case.”

“But an overdose could cause respiratory issues in an adult?” he pressed.

“Yeah, it’s possible,” I said. “If the dose was large enough. Side effects include lethargy and sleepiness. The problem with Evie Lidle’s tox report is that there were just trace amounts in her system. It wasn’t enough to make me think it did anything but curb her nausea. It’s a very effective and fast-acting drug.”

“Let’s bag and tag the tea set,” Martinez said to Plank. “Keep your eyes open for the prescription bottle, or any other prescriptions you find. Evie Lidle was somehow taken out ofthis house, and something happened to Kitty Lidle that kept her from noticing her granddaughter was being taken right from beneath her nose. I refuse to believe she just happened to have a stroke or whatever. There are no coincidences in murder.”

“There’s no sign of struggle in this room,” I said, looking around closely, examining the windows and looking for something a kidnapper might have left behind. “The play areas look normal for a single kid who was bored with being stuck in bed. There’s a few books on the floor. Playhouse is disheveled. And a couple of golf clubs are lying on the bed instead of in the bag.”

“What about drugs that wouldn’t have shown up in a regular tox screen?” Martinez asked.

“Any number of prescription drugs or illegal drugs wouldn’t show up,” I told him. “The tox screen looks for markers—codeine, barbiturates, heroin, amphetamines, morphine. There are a lot of drugs and poisons that don’t have those chemicals. Something like chloroform would have shown up in her liver when I did the autopsy, so that’s also ruled out.”

“We know the girl fought back,” he said. “I’m just trying to narrow down the timeline a little. Let’s just say for conversation that the drug was in the tea. We’ve got TOD taking place sometime between nine and midnight. The killer got her out of the house somehow. The park is maybe a twenty-minute drive from here. And we know she was awake enough to fight back.”

“And not just fight back a little,” I told him. “The defensive wounds on her arms and the flesh under her nails does not tell the story of a girl drugged out of her mind. She was alert.”

“So maybe she wasn’t drugged at all,” he said.

“You think she went willingly?” I asked.

“Whether she went willingly or was carried out in a potato sack, I don’t know. But I don’t believe for a second that a place like this doesn’t have eyes and ears everywhere.”

I agreed with that. “Send the tea set to the state lab and have them look for trace evidence. Once you start getting into poisons, the tests become very specific. It can take some time.”

“Right,” Martinez said, blowing out a breath. “We’ll hope it’s not poison. Looks like we need to talk to the house manager and the chef since they showed up this morning.

---