Page 23 of A Rose of Steel
Good thing I didn’t agree to go with him to his conference. My hair would have been a real wreck. I moaned. That’s no excuse. For this to work, he had to like me for me, frizzy-hair-no-make-up me or both of us were going to have plan out a future without each other in it.
I took in a breath, sat up and stared at the computer. I’d let Alex get me off track. I was supposed to be trying to figure out what nagged me about Bumper’s death.
Now where was I...
I was looking into Bumper. Trying to learn who he was.
Right.
Okay. So. Bumper was happy about getting married. Not nervous. His asthma apparently wasn’t bad enough to keep him from playing ball whether that was because he was playing in California or because he had outgrown it or gotten used to the humidity in Roble and it was no longer a trigger. And I knew that with all the inhalers around, old or not, they should have stopped his asthma from getting worse.
What else did I know?
I knew that Alex got sick after tending to Bumper.
Alex.
At least this Alex digression wasn’t taking me off track.
Okay. So. Alex was fine when he gave Bumper CPR, and fine after he hopped off the back of the ambulance. He said that he didn’t start feeling bad until he woke up from his nap, hours after he’d left. And then that was when he noticed the irritation on his lips and nose.
Did he get sick from whatever he’d picked up from Bumper’s lips or mouth when he tried to resuscitate him? I remember noticing that it looked like crumbs. Was that what made his lips red? Was it what made him sick?
But why did it take so long for him to have a reaction? And crumbs of what?
Bumper hadn’t eaten. At least that’s what Floneva said and Auntie thought it was probably the truth. I had watched him from the window and I hadn’t seen him eat anything. And from my point of view I hadn’t even seen any food anywhere.
For Bumper to have crumbs on him that could have been transferred to Alex, he would have had to ingest something right before that debilitating attack. Because who leaves crumbs on their mouth for any length of time? It’s a natural reaction to wipe your mouth as you eat.
I shook my head. Maybe he did die from an asthma attack.
I blew out a breath.
Maybe not.
I glanced up at the computer monitor. Bumper smiling. Happy. Healthy. Asthma just seemed so improbable. And if he didn’t die from that, and whatever he died from was what made Alex sick, what did that mean?
One. It meant it had to be something transferable.
What could a person have that they could transfer to someone else simply by touch?
Two. I cocked my head to the side. Since Alex didn’t die and only seemed to have an irritation, it was something that was effective on the outside of the skin.
Three. It didn’t kill right away. Bumper didn’t die until a few hours after he reached the hospital.
What could kill a person in a matter of hours?
I couldn’t think of anything that could do that except for some type of poison. A poison that could spread by skin contact but was only deadly if inhaled or if ingested--seeing that Alex complained of stomach pains—but didn’t kill if only a small amount was taken in.
And if it were poison, that would mean murder...
I shook my head and sat up straight.
It couldn’t be.
Another murder?
I couldn’t think of any other way that Bumper Hackett could have died and Alex could have been affected. Not with the circumstances as I was starting to understand them.
