Her Frozen Cry (Detective Amanda Steele)

TWELVE

Amanda and Trent grabbed a quick bite to eat and gulped back a coffee before going to Tony’s house. Both were churning in her stomach like laundry in the wash. The detour had been more of a delay tactic than anything. But there’d be no more putting this off.

Trent turned into the paved driveway.

Her phone rang. Malone. She answered on speaker.

“Any updates on the case?” he asked.

She filled him in on the tampered bottle of Sleep Tight.

“Her sleeping aid was drugged, but have you confirmed the poisoning with Rideout?”

“He won’t have toxicology results until early next week.” She’d already told him that, and it wasn’t like him to forget.

“Huh. Still, until we have proven she ingested it, I’m not sure where that leaves the investigation.”

“Rideout was fairly certain she’d been poisoned after looking closely at her liver.” She’d told Malone that before too. “The tox results were for confirmation.”

“Right, confirmation.”

“And unless someone was trying to kill Alicia, the sleeping aid wouldn’t have been tampered with.” Amanda could feel her redhead temper firing and gearing up to full throttle. Why was Malone being slow about this?

“It’s possible she planned to take her life.”

“Possible, but not likely. If that was the case, why didn’t she just swallow a bunch at once?”

“Can you prove that she didn’t?”

Why is he being so difficult? “Sarge, we need to move forward with this investigation. We need access to her phone records, computer, and financials.”

“Can’t do it, Steele. Not quite yet.”

With the use of her surname, the chances of successfully appealing to him were made slim, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from trying. “Why not?”

“I believe I’ve been clear. After the toxicology results return and if they show pentobarbital poisoning, I will make sure you get subpoenas approved for all you require.”

“But—”

“No, I’m done listening. Speak to the husband again. Maybe he’ll let you poke around her phone and computer. But we can’t get a warrant for those things just yet. And you might not want to hear this, but you told me the woman’s sleeping aid was poisoned. Someone close to her could be responsible. You need to take a good, hard look at the husband. Friend or not.”

She was speechless, and her mouth dry. Trent was looking at her profile. “We’re at his house now. I’ll keep you posted.” She ended the call and held her phone so tightly the edges of it bit into the sides of her hand. She could try going straight to a judge, but if it got back to Malone—and it probably would—there’d be hell to pay.

“You told him about Tony,” Trent said.

“He already knew, but yes, I tried to.”

Trent slowly nodded. “He’s acting strange. Not allowing us to apply for warrants until we have the toxicology results? Seems over the top, considering what we have.”

“Yep.”

“Wow. All right, well, we press on. We talk to Tony Bishop and go from there.”

She had her phone to her ear.

“What are you doing?”

“A workaround.” She got CSI Blair on the line and asked for a list of names and numbers recently in contact with Alicia—incoming and outgoing. Trent stared at her open-mouthed the entire time. A few seconds later, she hung up. “CSI Blair is heading out for the weekend soon, but she’ll delegate this to someone in the lab. Latest we’ll receive the list is tomorrow.” While the forensics building wasn’t open to walk-ins on the weekend, people would be there working.

“Do you think you should have done that?”

“Probably not, but it’s done now. As they say, better to beg for forgiveness…”

“Not when you’ve already had permission denied.”

It took two rings of the doorbell for someone to answer. Tony Bishop had dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. Without a word, he gestured for them to come in and led them to the sitting area.

“Tell me you have some answers.”

“More questions, I’m afraid,” Amanda said dropping onto the dark-gray couch. Trent sat beside her. She went on. “You told us that Alicia had trouble sleeping and took Sleep Tight.”

“That’s right.”

“Does she have any bottles here at the house?”

“Yeah, she usually has a couple on hand.”

“Could we get what you have?”

Tony locked his gaze with hers. “Why, Mandy?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Could Trent go with you and get them?”