Insidious (FBI Thriller 20)

Sherlock said, “When did you get ill, Venus? What were your symptoms?”

“We got home about ten o’clock. Veronica helped me to bed, but I had a lot on my mind. There’s a merger we’re working on with a family-owned company outside Boston. They’re not happy, but they need our money desperately and they’re having trouble understanding the consequences. I got a sudden terrible headache that made my head spin, an upset stomach with cramping pain. And I felt nauseated. The worst of it lasted about thirty minutes. I didn’t even buzz Veronica, simply took some antacid and some Tylenol. Then everything was fine again. I called my personal physician, Dr. Filbert, in the morning, and he told me it was probably from the lobster chasseé, too much for my eighty-six-year-old stomach. It made sense. I hated it, but I accepted it.”

“Did you tell anyone you were ill?”

“Certainly. I mentioned it to Guthrie and Alexander. I was concerned they’d gotten ill as well, but they hadn’t. Veronica agreed with the doctor. I believe she phoned the chef at the Ambassador’s Club, asked if the lobster had made anyone else ill. But no one else had called.”

“Tell us about the second time.”

“That was last Friday evening. I was with Guthrie and Alexander again. Hildi and Glynis should have been there, but Glynis wasn’t feeling well and her mother stayed with her. We had dinner at the Wallingford Bistro over in Foggy Bottom. I had some consommé and a house salad, basically a Cobb with some roasted pine nuts artfully scattered on top. Nothing at all iffy, not after my experience with the lobster.

“I started feeling nauseated and shaky when we arrived home. I had some terrible abdominal pains and an upset stomach. The room was spinning. This time, Veronica wanted to call an ambulance to go to the emergency room. I called Dr. Filbert instead, and he thought it was my old lady’s stomach again—but to cover himself, he wanted to order a hundred tests, all of them unpleasant and undignified. I told him I’d think about it, see if the symptoms passed. Guthrie and Alexander were at home with me. Like Veronica, both of them wanted to call an ambulance, but I was feeling better by then. They both seemed satisfied with what Dr. Filbert said.”

“My daughter, Hildi, called the next day when she found out, but she wasn’t too worried, said I was an iron horse. As for Glynis, her headache was gone and she was out shopping.”

Savich knew Venus’s granddaughter, Glynis, was the jet-setter in the family. She never seemed to be happy, no direction in her life, always racing to fill her time with buying designer clothes and globe-trotting to the latest “in” spots. She’d been divorced twice, had no children. Had she really been ill? Who knew.

And Hildi, her mother. Savich remembered his grandmother grinning and shaking her head over Hildi. “Venus never imagined birthing a hippie artist, yet she did, all the way down to her tie-dye and Birkenstocks.” He also remembered his grandmother telling him that Venus had paid off a man she called a “creep,” who’d married Hildi for her money after getting her pregnant with Glynis, to disappear from the Rasmussens’ lives without so much as a by-your-leave. How had Hildi felt about that?

Venus paused a moment. “Do you know, Dillon, Hildi turned fifty last month? Can you imagine? My own child turning fifty! Of course, Guthrie’s fifty-eight, but people of my generation never really think of men as getting old—they simply fall over of a heart attack at some point.” She fell silent, looking down at the rich nap of the Persian rug beneath her feet.

She looked up finally. “A lot of politicos have dinner at the Wallingford, so we spent most of our time meeting and greeting, which is why I rarely go out to a restaurant anymore. It’s exhausting, but Guthrie urged me to go, said he really liked the chef’s way with artichoke risotto. No, none of our visitors from the first time at the Ambassador Club were there, as I recall.” She raised eyes drawn with strain to Savich’s face. “And then this last time. Last night. It was horrible, much worse. I was here, at home, with Guthrie and Alexander. Hildi and Glynis dropped by. Mr. Paul served us coffee and apple pie. It happened fast—after ten minutes, I could hardly stand, the room was spinning so. And I noticed my urine was dark, almost black. And that’s when I researched poisons on the Internet and found my symptoms perfectly fit arsenic poisoning. Then I knew someone, maybe someone in my family, someone of my blood who lives with me, and claims to love me, is trying to kill me.”

6

* * *

Sherlock said, “Venus, let’s go one step at a time.”

Isabel appeared in the doorway. “Agent Savich, there’s a Bill Carlson from the FBI here.”

“Good. He’s arrived earlier than I thought. He’ll draw your blood, Venus, take a couple of strands of your hair and the urine sample Dr. Amick from our forensics lab requested. We may know in a couple of hours what we’re dealing with.”

“I do hate needles,” Venus said. “Always have. Still, it’s better than an ambulance ride.”

“That’s the truth,” Savich said, and patted her hand. As he spoke, he studied her elegant face, saw she was in control again. She was looking back at him, her eyes sharp, determined and intelligent. He knew she had to be focusing on her son and grandson, Guthrie and Alexander, as the ones trying to murder her, impossible for her not to since they’d been there with her on all three occasions. However horrible such a betrayal might be for her, he saw she would pull through this. She would go on.

Savich rose. “Come on in, Bill. We’re ready here.”

The blood draw was quickly over. Bill was good with a needle and stuck her vein on the first try with hardly an intake of breath from Venus. “Beautiful veins you have, ma’am,” Bill Carlson said as he patted down a cotton ball over the puncture site and pressed on it. “Now, a couple strands of your hair. You press on the cotton pad and it’ll be over in a flash.” And it was. “Now we need a urine sample.” He handed her a small plastic container, her name written on it in Magic Marker.

Venus took the container, nodded to Savich and Sherlock, and left the living room. She returned a few minutes later with a small paper bag, handed it to Bill Carlson.

“Thank you, ma’am. Agent Savich, I’ll put a rush on this and call you as soon as I know.”

They heard Isabel speaking to him in the entrance hall, heard the front door open and close.