Page 60 of A Rose of Steel
“What?” I asked, amused. “They thought it might all be a charade, funeral and all, just to catch them?”
“They are criminals and that’s what criminals do. And,” she said, a look on a face like a light bulb went off, “this is their warning to anyone else if they turn them down. They just wanted to make sure everyone got the message.”
“Oh wow,” I said.
“Oh no!” she said and ducked behind me. “They’re coming over here.”
I stepped aside. “They won’t kill you here.”
“They might,” she said, she grabbed my sleeve and pulled me next to her. “They’re despicable desperados.”
“Mrs. Derbinay,” one of them said, walking up to us. “It’s nice to see you, so sorry it was under such sad circumstances.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The conversation with Shane Blanchard and Coach Buddy was as benign as dead skin on the heel of a foot. After two minutes of boring cordiality among the three of them, I excused myself, more politely this time, and waited for Auntie by the car.
She finally came out, all smiles, but I refused to let her expression pique my interest in what else the three of them talked about. Her murder theory, to me, was all silly speculation.
After making an appearance at the funeral, we didn’t go to the repast after the service, Auntie was still reeling over not being entrusted to ready Bumper for his eternal rest and refused to socialize.
“I’ve paid my respects,” she said. “And what I want to break is not bread.”
When we got home, J.R. met us at the door. He followed me upstairs and Auntie went to the kitchen, she said, to make her a bite to eat.
When I checked my email, I was surprised to see a message from the TxDPS. I clicked on it, knowing it could only be one reason the Texas Department of Public Safety could be emailing me.
But that was so quick.
Sure enough it was their Criminal Investigations Division. I let my eyes scan the sheet, looking for the information I wanted to know. What killed Bumper? But when I read that line, my breath caught in the back of my throat and a chill ran up my spine. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I stared at it. Scrolled up then back, thinking it might change. But it didn’t.
Then I realized I didn’t know anything about that poison. I’d heard that some woman from Texas had sent ricin to the president and the mayor of New York a while back. But that was it. I typed the word into a browser and started my research. I checked out the symptoms first. There were listed differently for ingestion, inhalation and skin and eye exposure. It easily covered Bumper and Alex’s symptoms. If you knew what you were looking for.
Then I wondered if I knew we could have saved Bumper. I clicked on “Treatment.”
No antidote.Geesh!
We probably couldn’t have saved him even if we had known.
I clicked back to my email and hit print on the computer. Maybe the toxicology report would be different if I was holding it in my hand. I pulled it off the printer, walked over to my bed and sat down, tugging tightly at the edges of the paper and staring down at it.
“I’ve got to tell Pogue,” I said. “And then get this over to him.” I looked around on the bed for my phone, then underneath it. “Where did I put that thing?” I rarely needed it. Auntie’s proclamation ringing true in my ear, I didn’t have any friends. Then I remembered I had it in my purse, which I left hanging on the doorknob to my room.
“I got the toxicology report back,” I said after he picked up. I didn’t even give him a ‘hello’.
“And were you right?”
I didn’t say anything. I knew he knew the answer to that.
“Okay,” he said. “Nix that question. What kind of poison was it?”
“Ricin.” I plopped down on the bed and stared again at the paper I’d printed out.
“What the heck is that?”
“Comes from the castor bean.”
“Is that supposed to tell me what ricin is?”
