Read Online Old Poison by Joan Francis - Free Book Online Page A

closely,
reading my response. “I take it you did know her.”
    “We met once.”
    “Was she your client?”
    I thought about the question a moment, then
shook my head, “No. There don’t seem to be any marks on her body.
How did she die?”
    Camas nodded to Mr. Sanchez, the coroner’s
assistant. Sanchez pulled back a covering from her forehead
revealing that the entire top of her head had been severed. Unable
to control my reaction, I gasped and raised a hand to my mouth to
shut off further sound. A small moan escaped my lips as I shut my
eyes to block the shocking sight.
    “Sorry you had to see that,” said Camas.
    Nothing on Evelyn’s body had been covered
but that gaping skull. Sorry, my eye. He had deliberately set up
this little revelation to see what reaction he could get out of
me.
    “Sure you are. Please don’t confirm all my
worst first impressions, Agent Camas.”
    It was very dumb of me to let my anger out
in such a direct verbal assault on a federal investigator. I knew
the minute I did it that I would pay for it. Anger flashed briefly
in his cold blue eyes, but he had sense enough to control it. The
tone of his reply was wonderfully balanced between the apology he
voiced and the sarcastic condescension he implied.
    “Sorry to shock you, Ms. Hunter, but since
you’re a professional investigator, I naturally assumed you were up
to this.”
    To complete his show and tell, he turned
Evelyn’s hands, palms up, so I could see that all the skin had been
sliced from the tips of her thumbs and fingers.
    “Here’s why we got no prints.”
    Getting my anger under control, I realized I
was lucky he thought it was the gore that had upset me. What had
really shocked me was seeing that Evelyn had been murdered in
precisely the same fashion as Antia in the Martian Diary . My
suspicion of Borson jumped to the red zone. I prayed that the
search Sam was doing would turn up some useful information that I
could turn over to the FBI. That last mysterious message from
Borson had really lit a fire under Sam. He had taken it as a
personal affront to his skill as an intelligence professional, and
he had turned on all his old skills to figure out how Borson was
tapping into my apartment, my phone, and my computer. At this
moment, however, I had nothing to give Agent Camas.
    I decided to play the role his prejudice had
cast me in. I feigned illness and left the room suddenly. It gave
me a moment to be out from under his scrutiny and go over the
amount of truth I should tell him.
    I had gotten into Flagstaff late Friday, but
Camas couldn’t be bothered with me until today, so I had spent
Friday night at a motel. That wasn’t included in his expense
reimbursement. From the moment we met this morning, he had pulled
one obnoxious, bigoted, sexist thing after another. Brilliant he
wasn’t, but dogged and arrogant he was, and he would be capable of
making my life miserable if I wasn’t very careful.
    He walked up to me outside, stuck a piece of
chewing gum in his mouth, and offered me one. I declined. His
lopsided, sarcastic grin revealed large teeth with protruding
canines. There is no way anyone would mistake that smile for
friendliness. It radiated smart-ass arrogance.
    “Yeah, it takes a while to get used to that
sort of thing, especially if it’s someone you know. Who was
she?”
    “Her name is Evelyn Lilac. She is . . . was
some sort of biology or ecology professor from Costa Rica.”
    “Costa Rica, huh. How did you meet her?”
    “Someone asked me to interview with her
because she needed a research assistant for a novel she was going
to write.”
    “Research assistant? Is that the level of
work you do?”
    His voice was so derisive he almost taunted
me into another angry outburst, but I had learned my lesson.
    “No, and I ended up rejecting the
assignment.”
    “When and where was this interview?”
    “Late October, I don’t recall the date. We
met on the San Gabriel River bike trail.”
    “You mean, like,