Drop Dead Gorgeous(44)

I smile. “Yes. In the old days, of course, you had lead paint, but that hasn’t been a thing for most folks in a long time. And Richard Horne, while he did die of a heart attack, his heavy metal levels are crazy high. Not just lead, either, but several levels. For no discernible reason.”

“What did Sheriff Barnes say?” he asks.

I flop into the chair in front of his desk, uninvited. “Nothing. He heard ‘heart attack’ and that I can’t prove the two are connected and basically said ‘case closed’.”

“But you don’t think so,” Blake summarizes, sitting down in the chair next to me.

I sigh, my eyes rolling up to stare at the ceiling. “This is gonna sound crazy, but I just have this feeling there’s more to it. For example, lead poisoning in adults can cause high blood pressure. And high blood pressure is a precursor for heart attack. Arsenic and mercury can also lead to heart problems.”

“Or maybe he just ate too many donuts or cheeseburgers?” Blake suggests. But he shrinks when I cut my eyes his way. “Or you cross-link a heavy metal level and heart attack, and get—”

“And you could end up face down in your breakfast,” I finish. “It’s wonky, I know. No reason in particular to link it all, other than my Spidey senses.”

“That doesn’t sound crazy at all.”

I glance at him to see if he’s making fun of me, but he’s looking at me earnestly, no teasing light in his eyes. “You are probably the only person who would tell me that.”

“But you know I’m right. You call it Spidey senses, I call it intuitive intelligence. Long story short, if your gut says something’s up, it is. What’re you thinking?”

I’m silent, letting my brain sort through ideas and possibilities. Blake doesn’t interrupt me. He sits there quietly and patiently, letting me work inside my head. Most people don’t do that. They fill any lulls with awkward conversation, making me unable to concentrate when I need to, but he seems perfectly content with watching me think without needing an explanation of what I’m doing.

Eventually, I come back to the here and now, having been on a trip through the encyclopedia in my mind. “There’s no obvious answer to the heavy metal levels in Horne’s blood. By all accounts, he was a healthy guy with no risk factors.”

Blake looks down at the paper again and hums. “Okay then, healthy guy drops dead of a heart attack with odd blood levels. His job, his lifestyle, nothing would expose him to high levels of heavy metals. What are we missing?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here,” I confess. Asking for help, or admitting that I need it, is not something I do. Yet here I sit.

“I’m biased by my own experience with life insurance claims and immediately jump to foul play, especially with how the widow is acting.”

That gets my attention. “What do you mean? At the scene, she was calm, almost numb.” I tilt my head, remembering “No . . . no, it was more than that, if that makes sense. She was just watching, and then, when she saw me looking at her, she went hysterical. Like wailing dramatics, all for show.”

“When she came to see me, she was almost annoyed by the whole process,” Blake says. “Like she had a car salesman waiting on the check or something. Definitely not the grieving widow. My exact thought was that her inner theme song was, heyyy, must be the mon-ayyy! and I believe that even more after she went full-throttle and started threatening lawsuits to get the money faster.”

My eyes nearly bug out of my head. “People do that?”

Blake shrugs, unconcerned. “Yeah. I won’t say it happens a lot, but it’s not my first time seeing it.”

We stare at each other for a long moment and I whisper what I think we’re both thinking, “Suspicious, at best.”

Blake raises one brow and adds dramatically, “Murder, at worst.”

I laugh, smacking gently at his arm. “I wouldn’t jump that far ahead. We don’t have anything to back that up.”

“The facts, ma’am,” he deadpans. “Just the facts.”

Pointing at the paper in his hand, I agree. “Exactly.”

“So, now what?”

The question makes me stop. I’d love to say this is where Jeff takes over, but I’ve never had a case that was actual suspicious foul play before. I’ve dealt with too many car accidents and two suicides that were clear even without my work. Other than that, I proclaim death and do autopsies so families can get some closure, but it’s always been a pretty straightforward case.

There was a hunting accident once where we needed to be sure it was an actual accident, but again, my part was relatively simple. I pointed out where the bullet entered, the bullet lodged, and left the rest to the detectives. A member of the team, but not the driving force. That’s always Jeff.

I suspect that if there were a clear murder, Sheriff Barnes wouldn’t even call me, he’d call the State Police. We’re just too country out here in Williamson County for that.

“You know anything about investigation?” I ask hopefully.

Blake shakes his head slowly but then grins. “Nope, but I bet two smart people like us know a lot about research.”

He’s right. I’ve written dozens of research papers, read hundreds, and I keep current on everything I can get my hands on in the forensic sciences. It’s not the same as what the sheriff does, but it’s a start.