CHAPTER SIX

. . . .

. . .

Juliet was still feeling warm and fuzzy at work the next morning when she and Lincoln met with Woody to get his detailed toxicology report on the deceased professor.

Woody was unduly perky, she thought not for the first time. "Mr. Napoli had a rather nice combination of drugs in his system. Very impressive really."

"Such as?"

"Three types of cholesterol meds, two types for hypertension, a diuretic, something for diabetes and even higher than expected amounts of lutein."

"That's all supposed to be stuff to keep you alive," Juliet pointed out.

"Oh, of course. No, that's not what killed him. What killed him was succinylcholine. A large dose, injected into his thigh. I apologize profusely for missing the needle mark on my first run, but I'd been up late the night before playing Twister with my wife and the cat and I wasn't at the top of my game."

While Juliet was wondering about the cat's viability as a Twister player, Lincoln said, "I've heard of succinylcholine; isn't it something only a medical professional would have access to?"

"Yup. Anesthesiologists or even vets. Are there any horses involved in this case?"

"I don't think so. Time of death?"

"Around one a.m. Pity about the horses. I like horses."

Juliet focused. "The wife went to bed just after midnight while he was asleep in his easy chair, and she didn't find him until morning. She swears the house was locked up tight. Could she have slept through someone entering, jabbing her husband and then sneaking out again?"

"Do they have a cat?" Woody inquired.

Lincoln ignored that. "I think we need to have another talk with Mrs. Napoli. From what I recall, succinylcholine works fast, so if she went to bed after midnight and he was still alive, and the time of death was one hour later, it's hard to believe she missed someone else being in the house while she was getting ready for bed herself."

"Let's find out. Thanks, Woody."

He seemed sad to see them go.

Juliet told Lincoln she'd meet him in the cruiser to go visit Mrs. Napoli, and on her way back from the restroom, Lassiter called. Got to get that happy-response under control, she warned herself before saying hello.

"Hey, O'Hara. I have some information for your Napoli case."

So much for gushing. "Really? Lincoln and I are about to go talk to the widow."

"I was thinking of doing that myself."

"Um, in an official capacity?" Not that she'd mind. He was still technically a cop.

"Not exactly. More in a 'why did your husband send me this email?' capacity."

"What did he send you?" She paused. "And when? He's been dead for nearly a week."

"It came to the university email account assigned to me when I registered but I forgot about it. He sent it the same day I talked with him—the day before I left for Virginia."

"Well, what's the message?"

"It's the article he mentioned, plus a note that he was sure I'd find it of interest, and to get in touch after my trip."

"Do you find it of interest? Send it to me."

"I've already printed a copy for you," he said with amusement. "I don't know what you'll make of it, though. That's why I want to talk to his widow."

"Come on, then." She gave him the address, suppressing a bubble of joy about seeing him again (this is silly: you worked with him every day for years; why so schoolgirl now? Because... before, I knew I'd see him... now seeing him is a gift).

She and Lincoln got to the Napoli residence first, but he pulled in a minute later. She'd explained on the way, and knew Lincoln was curious to meet Lassiter. His work thus far had been further down the coast, and Lassiter was only a name and reputation to him.

Lassiter got out of the car, tall and collected, wearing a brown jacket she remembered, no tie, white shirt open a little at the neck, eyes sky blue; he smiled at her and his gaze fell briefly to the necklace she wore. The one he'd given her. "Carlton Lassiter," he said to her partner cordially, "and you must be Lincoln." The men shook hands. "Thanks for letting me tag along on this one." He held a folder, which he handed to Juliet. "Here's Napoli's article. It's conjecture about conjecture about a series of possible murders in a Missouri regiment during the war."

Lincoln repeated, "Conjecture about conjecture?"

"Mostly it's theories about whether or not the murders were murders or even took place at all. I haven't had time to research the regiment yet, but I'll check it out later. What I want to ask the widow is why he thought I would want this, and whether she has any other information which might not be in the article."

Juliet was puzzled. "Surely he couldn't have expected you to investigate a Civil War murder."

"I'm hoping she'll have the answer to that question."

As they walked up the winding brick path, she filled him on Woody's toxicology report. They were side by side, and occasionally his hand brushed hers—but it could have been an accident, she assured herself in case Lincoln noticed it all seven times it happened.

Mrs. Napoli could have come straight from a British tea-cozy murder mystery, minus the accent. She let them in, recognizing Juliet first up, and seemed a bit confused about Lassiter being both with and not with the police, though she was definitely charmed by his vivid blue eyes. "Oh, my," she said, "you remind me of my first boyfriend." She turned to lead them to the living room, and Lassiter's eyebrows were way high when he glanced at Juliet, who grinned.

The widow was wearing black, keeping to the old tradition, and she did indeed seem rather dejected. "James and I were married for 37 years. We've lived in this house for 32 of them."

It was an old place, well-cared for, a slice out of time, lined with books from floor to ceiling, and somehow a fitting place for Mrs. Napoli to weep when she was told that her husband had in fact been murdered. But there was something off about it, Juliet thought; not that she had done it herself (never mind having access to succinylcholine), but just something askew with her grief.

Lassiter spoke gently after she'd calmed down. "Mrs. Napoli, your husband sent me one of his articles, one he hadn't published yet. Do you know anything about his research into the possible murder of soldiers in a Missouri regiment during—"

"Oh, that!" she cried. "Yes, yes, that was his pet project lately."

"Can you think of any reason he'd want me in particular to read it?"

She blinked. "Who are you again?"

He wasn't fazed. "Carlton Lassiter, former Head Detective with the police department. I'm taking some summer classes and met with your husband a few weeks ago. He seemed very keen to get me to read this article, but I didn't understand why, since he's a thousand times more knowledgeable about Civil War history than I am."

Mrs. Napoli nodded. "Of course. He mentioned you. You were the test reader."

"Come again?"

"He wanted you to find the problems with it."

Lassiter was puzzled, and Juliet and Lincoln were puzzled right along with him. "Hang on. I don't understand. He wrote this article about the possible murders with the goal of publishing it, but wanted me to prove it was bad research?"

She beamed. "Yes, of course."

"Mrs. Napoli," Juliet interjected, "this doesn't make any sense."

"That's what I told him."

Lassiter leaned forward. "He wrote the article, though."

"Yes. Well, he co-wrote it with one of his colleagues."

"But his name is the only one on the copy he sent me."

"Oh, yes, they had some kind of deal."

"Who's the other author?"

She folded her hankie, a bit annoyed. "I don't know. He has so many Civil War friends and he was just so coy about who he was working with. He said he wanted me to have plausible deniability when it came out."

Lassiter's frown took Juliet back to so many cases involving Shawn, nonsensical ramblings and powerful headaches. "Can you give us the names of some of those friends?"

"Of course, but the information is probably all in his laptop, which this nice young lady took the the other day."

Juliet confirmed. "We can look at his email and other documents. But if you can name a particular friend or colleague, that would be very helpful."

Lincoln got out his notebook, ready to write.

Lassiter interrupted quickly. "May I see the study?" It was where the professor had died.

Mrs. Napoli waved vaguely, already focusing on trying to remember names, and Juliet led the way across the hall. The floor creaked with every step, and Lassiter remarked as they entered the opposite room, "Didn't the front door make this much noise, too?"

"The whole place is creaky." The study was dark; heavy desk, heavy wall-hangings, heavy drapes. She crossed the room toward the window, a creak accompanying every movement.

"No sneaking up on anyone in this place."

She gave him a sharp look. "That's right. You'd have to know the house really well to avoid hitting the creaky spots."

He smiled. "As well as someone who'd lived here for 32 years?"

"Just so," she agreed. "The crime scene guys checked the ground and the roof for ladder and rope impressions but came up blank." The window was locked tight, and when Lassiter came over to unlock and open it, it screeched dramatically.

"Nobody snuck into this room," he said quietly.

They wandered through the rest of the house, finding the side door to the garden and the back door to a covered porch and the verdant back yard. Both doors creaked, and the porch door was partly blocked with lawn furniture. Every window they tried was locked but when opened, screeched or squawked in some way. When they went upstairs, they could easily hear Lincoln and Mrs. Napoli, and even with the master bedroom door closed, sounds traveled well.

Lassiter followed her down the stairs, and stopped her before she re-entered the main hall. "Even if you were used to the noises this place makes, you'd have to be a pretty heavy sleeper to miss them all." He was giving her that look she knew so well: the one where he knew they were thinking the same thing, and it was exhilarating.

In the living room, Lincoln was finishing up with Mrs. Napoli's list of her husband's colleagues.

He got to his feet, and Juliet motioned for him to join her in the hall while Lassiter went in and sat with Mrs. Napoli. "What's up?" he asked in a low voice.

"Did you hear us walking around?"

"Understatement. Sounded like you slaughtered a couple of pigs, too."

She suppressed a laugh. "Those were the windows. The noise is the problem with her story."

He got it, smiled faintly, and followed her back into the living room.

"Mrs. Napoli," she said kindly, "one more thing about the night of your husband's death."

"Anything, dear."

Juliet hesitated. "You weren't telling us the truth, were you?"

Panic in her eyes. "What? What do you mean? Of course I—"

"You said you went to bed after midnight. His time of death was one a.m., which means you were right upstairs when it happened."

Mrs. Napoli was beyond pale. "Yes, that's right."

"This house is very noisy," Juliet continued, as non-threateningly as possible. "So the odds of someone entering through any of the locked doors or windows, crossing the creaky floors of the hall or the study, injecting your husband and then leaving again without you hearing anything are pretty low, wouldn't you say?"

"But I… but I… if I heard anything, I thought it was Jim. I thought he was moving around," she said anxiously.

"Mrs. Napoli, please. We're trying to find his killer."

She put her handkerchief up to her face, shoulders shaking. "I'm so ashamed," she sobbed.

"Tell us what happened," Lassiter said, his voice gentle. "We just want to know the truth."

. . . .

. . .

It felt good to be sitting in Vick's office with Lassiter at her side instead of Lincoln, who had veered off to talk to Woody again.

Vick had actually hugged Lassiter when he walked in, a process which took longer than expected because a surprising (to him) number of people wanted to say hello. McNab would have hugged him too but Lassiter—with a smile—turned it into a hearty handshake.

"It's still really weird to not see your car here before mine," McNab said. "I keep thinking you're going to walk down the hall barking about coffee or something!" Immediately he was terribly embarrassed about the implication.

But Lassiter only grinned. "I don't bark as much as I used to. It's been a relaxing month. And I'm sorry for all the times I scared the hell out of you."

McNab was nonplussed. "But sir. That's my job."

"Nevertheless, there was hardly ever a good reason for me to be a jerk," Lassiter said mildly. "You didn't deserve it."

Too stunned to come up with an answer, McNab made an awkward exit, and the two of them turned to Vick.

"Pleasantries aside, what's the story on the widow?"

Habit made Juliet wait for Lassiter to start the telling, but when she glanced at him, he was looking at her expectantly. "It's your case, Detective."

Yes, it was. "Mrs. Napoli, as it turns out, is having an affair, though she won't say with whom. She really has no idea what happened to her husband, and she herself didn't get in until three a.m. She said she glanced in and assumed he'd fallen asleep in his chair again, so she left him until morning, when she realized he was dead."

Vick asked with some curiosity, "Why don't I recall Mrs. Napoli being the femme fatale type?"

"She's more Miss Marple," Juliet suggested.

"More like Mrs. Doubtfire," Lassiter argued.

"Somewhere in between?"

"Tootsie," he said, and even that wasn't right, but Juliet laughed anyway, and only belatedly noticed Vick noticing that.

"And what's this about an article the late professor mailed you?"

Lassiter gestured to the folder Juliet held. "There's a copy. I'm going to research it but from what Mrs. Napoli said, it's bogus and I was meant to figure that out."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I. Seems he and a colleague cooked up some scheme to plant a fake story about murders in a Missouri regiment, but we're not clear why."

"Who's the colleague?"

Juliet said, "Lincoln got a list of his friends and we'll cross-check it against what's on his laptop."

Vick pointed at Lassiter. "Okay, you check—wait. Sorry. Habit." She smiled. "Thank you for any assistance you can provide, Carlton."

He smiled back. "Thanks for allowing it." He shook her hand and cast a blue gaze upon Juliet for a moment. "Too early for lunch?"

"No, of course not," she said at once, catching another curious look from Vick in the process. "Just give me a minute."

He nodded and stepped out into the hall, where he was promptly greeted by old familiars, and before Juliet could take a step to follow him, Vick said "Hold up there, O'Hara."

Juliet turned. "Yes?"

"I'm just going to ask you this straight out. Are you… giddy?"

Juliet felt a blush creeping up her face. "Giddy?"

Vick smiled. "That's what I thought. Go on. You're dismissed."

. . . .

. . .