The Mother-in-Law(38)

“Okay, I think she killed herself . . .” I say, with what I hope sounds like conviction. “I mean, you found a letter.”

“We did find a letter. In her study drawer. Kind of a strange place to leave a suicide letter, don’t you think?”

“I . . . yes, I do think so.”

“Do you think it is in character for Mrs. Goodwin to do something like this?” he continues. “To take her own life?”

“It was in character for her to be headstrong,” I say. “Once she’s decided on something, it’s hard to change her mind.”

Ahmed looks down at a manila folder on the table in front of him, then retrieves a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from his pocket and places them on his nose. “The coroner reported high levels of carbon dioxide in the deceased’s blood.” Ahmed glances up at me over the tops of his glasses.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“She also had bloodshot eyes, bruising around the lips, gums and tongue.”

That part, admittedly, sounds odd. Why would she have bruising?

Ahmed looks back at the paperwork. “The examiner also found fibers in your mother-in-law’s hands. Thread . . . it looks like. Gold thread.” He shuffles through some pages in the folder, plucking out one. “Your mother-in-law’s house indicates she was house proud. Very tidy. Everything in its place. Matchy-matchy.”

I’m thrown by the sudden change in direction. “What does her house have to do with anything?”

Ahmed turns the piece of paper so I can see it. It’s a photo. I recoil, expecting a picture of Diana’s body. But it’s just a picture of Diana’s place, the good room.

“Does anything look wrong to you in this picture?” Ahmed asks.

I give it an arbitrary glance. “No, nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

I look a little closer. At the bookshelf, the coffee table, the deep, cream sofa with matching cream cushions . . . threaded through with gold.

“It feels like she would have a pair of these gold-threaded cushions, don’t you think?” Ahmed says. His gaze feels accusing and for a moment I wonder if he is, in fact, the good cop. “But we looked and looked, and we could only find one.”

I look back at the picture. He’s right, there were two cushions, definitely. I remember seeing them recently. I was at Diana’s with the kids and Harriet was picking at one, trying to pull out the thread so she could tie it to her hair and have long golden hair like Rapunzel. I had to snatch the cushion from her and put it back. Diana immediately straightened it. Ahmed was right, Diana was house proud.

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe she’d spilled something on one?” I suggest. “And sent it out for cleaning?”

“We’re looking into that. We’re looking into a lot of things.”

“Okay. But . . . wait. I thought you said you found materials in Diana’s house. Suicide materials.”

“We did.” Ahmed surveys me closely with his shiny, syrupy eyes. “An empty bottle of Latuben was found by your mother-in-law’s body. Latuben is a popular drug that people take to bring about a fast, painless death. Usually people drink two bottles of Latuben if they are trying to end their life, but even one bottle could be a fatal dose on someone Diana’s size and build.”

“So,” I clear my throat, “there was only one bottle by her body?”

“Only one.” Ahmed nods. “And in any case the drug wasn’t found in her bloodstream. So we’ve been looking at alternate causes of death.”

“Alternative causes of death?”

“Yes. So in light of everything I’ve told you, I’d like ask you the first question again.” He watches me over the tops of his glasses. “What do you think happened to your mother-in-law?”

I open my mouth and repeat the answer I gave Ahmed the first time, that I think Diana killed herself. But this time, it doesn’t come out with quite so much conviction.

Ollie emerges from his meeting room at the same time as I do, and Jones and Ahmed walk us back down the corridor. The room that Patrick was in is now empty, and if Nettie was here, she’s gone too. Ahmed and Jones take us as far as the elevator, thank us for coming in and give us their business cards again. Then Jones tells us, twice, that she’ll be in touch. Probably she is just tripping over the niceties of conversation, but then again, the police TV programs I watch lead me to believe the cops don’t do anything by accident.

“It went fine,” Ollie says, once the elevator door closes and we’re plunging downward. But his face says otherwise. He has a blotchy look about him that he gets when he’s coming down with something. The elevator doors open.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

We step out into the foyer. “Did Ahmed tell you about the autopsy?” he whispers as we walk. “The bruised lips?”

We cross the floor of the foyer, go through the automatic doors into the parking lot.

“Yes. And the missing pillow. And that’s not the only thing that doesn’t seem right about this.”

Ollie stops. “What else doesn’t seem right?”

“The cancer. Why isn’t there any evidence of cancer?”

Ollie opens his mouth but I get in first.

“And the letter, why was it in a drawer? Wouldn’t she leave it somewhere obvious for someone to find it?”