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“Mrs. Hudson told you yesterday that Harold Gray faked his death?” Tempest paced back and forth in front of Detective Blackburn, so full of nervous energy that she thought she might pop. “How did you not think it relevant to tell us?”

“If you’d stop crawling the walls and let me get a word in,” Blackburn said, “I’d tell you.”

She sat.

Sanjay and Gideon were already seated, watching the exchange. Tempest had called them as soon as she’d left Mrs. Hudson’s house, and they insisted on coming with her to the police station.

“Mrs. Hudson did indeed tell me of her suspicions when I interviewed her last night,” Detective Blackburn said. “I looked into it. We have every reason to believe that Harold Gray died three months ago.”

“Was he poisoned?” Sanjay asked.

Blackburn pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cardiac arrest. Nothing suspicious. He was in his nineties, had heart disease, and knew he didn’t have long to live. That’s why he got his affairs in order to renovate his house and turn it into a library.”

“A library devoted to classic mysteries,” said Tempest. “Books about clever crimes, by devious minds like that of Agatha Christie. Books that filled him with ideas about faking his own death.”

“I didn’t take it for granted that he was dead.” Blackburn’s voice was more clipped than usual. He was losing patience with her. “There’s a death certificate.”

“Signed by someone you know?”

“I don’t know every doctor in this town. This isn’t Murder, She Wrote ’s Cabot Cove.”

“But if Harold Gray is alive, it explains everything. Or at least a lot of things.”

“Tempest.” His voice softened as he said her name. “We’ve known each other a long time. You know I explore all the angles. I follow the evidence. When Mrs. Hudson told me of her suspicions, because you’d all heard his voice last night, I looked into it. That’s one of the things I’ve been tracking down today. Not just speaking with the doctor who signed his death certificate, but looking at other signs that he might be alive and hiding.”

“Oh… So, nothing suspicious?”

“Nothing so far,” Blackburn confirmed.

“You said it was cardiac arrest that killed Harold?” said Gideon.

Blackburn nodded.

“Did you consider the oleander in his backyard?” Gideon asked.

Poison.

Blackburn tried not to react, but Tempest heard a sharp intake of breath. He hadn’t considered that.

“We’re investigating the strange death of Mr. Cruz,” Blackburn said. “One of the possibilities is that Mr. Gray had faked his death and killed Mr. Cruz, for reasons unknown. It’s not our main theory. But I thank you for bringing it to my attention that a plant containing toxins that can cause cardiac arrest is growing in the backyard of that house.”

“So you’ll investigate it?” Sanjay asked.

“Go home,” said Blackburn. “All of you. I’m trying to do my job, and the more I get interrupted with wild-goose chases, the harder it is to do.”

“We’re going,” said Tempest, scooping up Sanjay and Gideon by the elbow.

“Mr. Gray did love games and mysteries,” said Blackburn, “so it was a good idea to explore. It’s most likely a dead end, like most leads are. I’m following the evidence of Lucas Cruz’s whereabouts leading to his death. We’ll get there.”

Blackburn saw them out.

“So Harold Gray might still be alive,” Tempest said to her friends. “Or he might have been murdered by poison. Whatever is going on, it’s time we figured it out.”