Page 144 of To Die For

“I had some hot chocolate and Mom and Dad had coffee. It was a chilly day.”

“Did you drink from their cups?”

“No. I don’t like coffee.”

“What next?” said Campbell.

“The waitress brought us menus and we took a few minutes to order.”

“Your dad had a tuna sandwich with a side of berries, and your mom had waffles and scrambled eggs,” noted Devine.

She looked at him curiously. “Yeah, how’d you know that?”

Devine wasn’t about to reveal it was from the autopsy report on their stomach contents, so he just said, “The police told me. What did you have to eat?”

“A barbeque sandwich, coleslaw, and fries.”

“Did you eat off each other’s plates, share any food at all?” asked Campbell.

“No, we never did that.”

“Okay, and then?” said Devine.

“My dad paid the bill when it came, and we left.”

“Anyone use the bathroom?” asked Campbell.

“Mom did. Dad and me didn’t.”

“Anybody come up other than the waitress? Shake hands with your parents? Anything like that?”

“No. I don’t think they knew anyone there.”

Devine sighed and sat back.

They watched the rest of the video. No one had touched the Odoms’ car. They got into the vehicle exactly as they had exited it. Then they drove off, Alice and Dwayne Odom to their deaths, and Betsy to becoming an orphan.

Odom looked at him. “Did that help any?”

He forced a smile and said, “We know more now than we did before, so, yes, it was a big help.”

“When are we going to my home?”

“Tomorrow. You better get some sleep.”

Devine watched her head off to bed and then turned to Campbell. “The poisoning had to happen when they met the men and got the duffel bag presumably with a payoff inside.”

“But how are you going to prove thatorfind the men?”

“Glass said it wasn’t him. And CIA said they paid nothing to the Odoms.”

“And you believe them?”

“I’m not sure I believe anybody anymore.”

After Campbell had gone back to his room, Devine sat there staring at the ceiling, but the usual mental images that normally trooped across the space in neat linear sequences didn’t materialize this time.

He gave up on that and thought back to what Coburn had told him. He pulled up the notes he’d taken of their conversation. Cyanide poisoning combined with DMSO, which accounted for the garlic smell she had found. Inhalation was the quickest death, ingestion the next fastest, and absorption the slowest, but sped up by the DMSO kicker.

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