Page 20 of Wham Line (The Last Picks #10)

“It could have been much worse,” the doctor said.

I squeezed Bobby’s hand and fought the urge to shift my chair closer to his bed—not that I could get much closer.

The next step would be to climb onto his lap.

Around us, the machinery continued to hum, and from the hall came a steady, high-pitched beeping that didn’t seem to alarm anyone.

Sunlight fell through the window in a warm oblong across my back. Bobby’s hand was stiff in mine.

“Was it tetrodotoxin?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” the doctor said. “The tests take time and aren’t always accurate. But the symptoms are certainly suggestive of it—the tingling numbness, respiratory difficulty, sweating.” He paused and shook his head, and his George Washington hair swung with him. “You were very lucky.”

“Can I go home?” Bobby asked.

“No,” I said. “You can’t.”

“I’m fine now,” Bobby said.

The doctor frowned. “Your breathing is better, and it sounds like the other symptoms are fading—”

“They’re gone.” And that, at least, seemed to be true—he was no longer wearing the cannula, and when the doctor had run through a series of tests and questions, Bobby’s responses had been normal. “I’m just tired.”

“I think it would be wise to stay overnight for observation.”

“But I don’t need to,” Bobby said. “If I start to feel weird again, I’ll go straight to the hospital.”

The doctor considered both of us. “Are you going to have someone with you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m going to be glued to him. Right here. In the hospital.”

“Dash, I’m fine.” Bobby said to the doctor, “I have a family emergency to take care of.”

“Your family will understand if you need to be in the hospital.”

Something flashed across Bobby’s face. He twisted his hand free of mine and sat forward, his gaze intent on the doctor.

“As long as you’re not going to be alone,” the doctor finally said.

“But don’t you think one night—” I tried.

“Thank you,” Bobby said.

“Rest,” the doctor said firmly. “And lots of fluids.”

“That’s great. I appreciate it.”

In surprisingly short order, a nurse unhooked Bobby from all the monitoring equipment, and Bobby took his clothes into the bathroom to change out of the hospital johnnie. I sat in the chair next to the hospital bed and tried not to look—and feel—like a spoilsport.

A rap on the door brought my head up, and the sheriff stepped into the room.

She was still dressed in a leather coat with the Ridge County Sheriff’s Office seal on the breast, and a Ridge County Sheriff’s Office baseball cap hung from one hand.

Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were tired; she looked like a woman who had two murders to solve in a town that was supposed to be quiet and peaceful and charming.

When she cocked her head at me, I pointed to the bathroom.

“Ah,” Sheriff Acosta said. “Mind if I sit?”

“The better to yell at us, I assume?”

The tic at the corner of her mouth wasn’t exactly a smile. “I’m checking on my favorite deputy.”

“I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“Not really.” She turned the baseball cap in her hands; inside, sweat stains showed against the dark fabric. “How’s he doing?”

“He should be staying overnight for observation.”

The sheriff made a sound of understanding and nodded.

“Maybe you can talk some sense into him,” I said.

She nodded again, but she said, “I didn’t get a chance to take your statement at Mizzenmast.”

So, I told her what had happened: everything from the moment we’d arrived and Nalini had tried to run, through my conversation with Talmage, and ending with spotting Jethro through the window right before Sparkie collapsed.

After I finished, I asked, “How quickly are you going to be able to tell what killed her?”

“It’ll take some time,” the sheriff said.

“It had to be poison,” I said. “You saw what happened to Bobby. He tried to give her mouth to mouth.”

“Why do you think someone would want to poison her?” the sheriff asked.

By that point, Bobby had emerged from the bathroom in a hoodie and joggers. “They weren’t trying to poison her. They were trying to poison Dash.”

I hesitated. “Okay, yes, maybe.”

The sheriff hung her baseball cap on her knee and studied Bobby. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

That little tic touched the corner of her mouth again, and the sheriff seemed to make a point of not looking at me.

I decided to take the high ground. “The problem is: if someone was trying to kill Sparkie, I don’t know why. I mean, it’s probably the usual reasons: she knew something, or she saw something. She followed Mal out to the alley, remember? She might even have been a witness.”

“We’ll look into it,” the sheriff said.

That sounded like code for this could take months and months . “But this is good news, right? I mean, Indira couldn’t have been involved in the poisoning, so now you know she’s innocent.”

“Dash, I’m not going to comment on an ongoing investigation.”

“What? What does that mean? Sheriff, she was at the station when this happened.”

Bobby said, “Dash.”

“What about Larry? They were arguing right before Sparkie died. Have you talked to him?”

“From what I understand,” the sheriff said, “Sparkie didn’t have anything to eat or drink while he was with her.”

“But he could have found a way. He could have snuck into the kitchen after he left.”

“And poisoned her food in front of the kitchen staff?”

My cheeks heated. “What about Talmage, then?”

“I thought she was talking to you.”

“She could have done it before she came out of the kitchen. There was enough time.”

The sheriff nodded, but she didn’t say anything. The faint smell of leather rose from her coat. The room was too warm now, and the sunlight glancing off the chrome bedrail made me want to squint.

“And Jethro was there,” I said, but even to me, it sounded like a petulant afterthought—like I couldn’t just let it go. “The staff knew him. Maybe he had some story about why he was supposed to be in the kitchen. About helping.”

The sheriff waited a beat too long before saying, “That’s a possibility.”

I swallowed a scream. “Yeah, it’s a possibility. Lots of great possibilities. So, I don’t understand why you won’t let Indira go.”

“Dash, I know that you care about Indira. You’re a good friend, and you’re loyal. She’s lucky to have you in her corner. But my job is to find whoever did this—”

“It’s not Indira!”

The sheriff took the baseball cap off her knee.

The moment grew longer and longer until, when she spoke again, her voice was low and hard.

“I have to go by the evidence. Right now, I’m trying to figure out if the gun we found in her flat is the murder weapon.

I can’t assume that these two incidents are connected.

If you want to talk about possibilities, then one possibility is that these events are unrelated.

If they are, then I’ve got two separate killers I need to track down.

And another possibility is that Indira had an accomplice. ”

I opened my mouth. And then I shut it again.

Until now, the fact that the sheriff was seriously considering Indira as a suspect hadn’t seemed real.

Yes, I knew things looked bad. Yes, I’d seen Indira in the alley.

Yes, I’d been there when they’d found the gun.

But some part of me had still believed that it was all a misunderstanding that would be cleared up in a few hours.

I mean, this was Indira . Sheriff Acosta had bought a birthday cake from Indira for her niece a few weeks ago.

Indira had made cupcakes for the station on Bobby’s birthday.

She and Dahlberg were in a wine club together.

“You mean Nalini,” I said; my voice sounded surprisingly normal somehow. “You think Nalini is helping Indira. Or maybe you think Indira is covering for her.”

“I mean I’m still investigating,” the sheriff said. “And I’m not going to debate an ongoing investigation with you. You need to let me do my job, and you need to trust that I’m going to do the best I can.”

But I knew I’d been right. “Indira wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t help someone cover up a crime. Someone is framing her.”

“Dash, I’m not going to talk about this with you,” the sheriff said.

I wanted to keep arguing, but my brief flare-up of anger had fizzled out, and now all I felt was sick and anxious.

“I’m going to repeat what I told you yesterday,” the sheriff said.

“Stay out of this. I know you think you’re helping your friend, but you need to understand that if there is exculpatory evidence, and if you tamper with it, you might make things worse for her.

And if Bobby’s right and that poison was meant for you—” She let the sentence hang.

My neck was too stiff for me to nod. I fought my inner teenager’s urge to ask how much worse it could get.

Snapping the baseball cap against her thigh, the sheriff stood. “You’re supposed to be on leave, Deputy Mai. Do I need to explain to you what that means?”

“No, Chief.”

She snapped the cap against her leg again a few more times. “God’s sake, Bobby. Go home and be with your family.”