A piece of broken wineglass.
Triumphantly, I hold it to the light. The glass is dirtier now than when I found it glinting in the yard. Crumbs dust the surface, and there’s a white splotch that might be salad dressing. Hopefully that won’t matter because the saltlike film I’d seen the other day remains.
If Tom Royce really did slip something into Katherine’s wine that night, hopefully this piece of glass will be able to prove it.
When Wilma Anson arrives, the glass shard has been safely tucked inside a Ziploc bag. She studies it through the clear plastic, the tilt of her head signaling either curiosity or exasperation. With her, it’s hard to tell.
“Where’d you get this again?”
“The yard,” I say. “The glass broke when Katherine passed out in the grass while holding it.”
“Because she’d allegedly been drugged?” Wilma says.
“Poisoned,” I say, correcting her.
“The lab results might say otherwise.”
Boone and I agreed it wasn’t a good idea to tell Wilma just how, exactly, I came to suspect Tom of trying to poison his wife. Instead, we told her I had suddenly remembered Katherine mentioning the name Harvey Brewer, which led me to the internet and my theory that Tom might have tried the same thing Brewer had done to his wife. It was enough to get Wilma to come over. Now that she’s here, the big question is if she’ll do anything about it.
“That means you’re going to test it, right?” I say.
“Yes,” Wilma says, the word melting into a sigh. “Although it’ll take a few days to get the results back.”
“But Tom could be gone by then,” I say. “Can’t you at least question him?”
“I plan to.”
“When?”
“When the time is right.”
“Isn’t now the right time?” I start to sway back and forth, put into motion by the impatience fizzing inside me. All the things I want to tell Wilma are the same things I can’t tell her. Revealing that I know Katherine’s phone, clothes, and rings remain in her bedroom would also be admitting that I broke into the Royces’ house. So I keep it in, feeling like a shaken champagne bottle, hoping I don’t explode under the pressure. “Don’t you believe us?”
“I think it’s a valid theory,” Wilma says. “One of several.”
“Then investigate it,” I say. “Go over there and question him.”
“And ask him if he killed his wife?”
“Yes, for starters.”
Wilma moves into the adjoining dining room without invitation. Dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and sensible shoes, she finally resembles the TV detective of my imagination. The only similarity to her outfit from last night is a scrunchie around her wrist. Green instead of yellow and clearly not her daughter’s. Slung over Wilma’s shoulder is a black messenger bag, which she drops onto the table. When she sits, her jacket flares open, offering a glimpse of the gun holstered beneath it.
“This isn’t as simple as you think,” she says. “There might be something else going on here. Something bigger than what happened to Katherine Royce.”
“Bigger how?” Boone says.
“You ever do a trust exercise? You know, one of those things where a person falls backwards, hoping he’ll be caught by the people behind him?” Wilma demonstrates by raising her index finger and slowly tilting it sideways. “What I’m about to tell you is a lot like that. I’m going to trust you with classified information. And you’re going to reward that trust by doing nothing and saying nothing and just letting me do my job. Deal?”
“What kind of information?” I say.
“Details of an active investigation. If you tell anyone I showed them to you, I could get in trouble and you could get your asses put in jail.”
I wait for Wilma to reveal she’s exaggerating with a just-kidding smile. It doesn’t happen. Her expression is as severe as a tombstone as she gives the scrunchie on her wrist a twirl and says, “Swear you will tell no one.”
“You know I’m good,” Boone says.
“It’s not you I’m worried about.”
“I swear,” I say, even though Wilma’s seriousness makes me wonder if I want to hear what she’s about to say. What I’ve discovered already today has me sparking with anxiety.
Wilma hesitates, just for a moment, before grabbing her bag. “When did the Royces buy that house?”
“Last winter,” I say.