I scan the information sheet on the inside flap of the file.
Cause of death: Poison. Substance undetermined. Pending toxicology reports.
My memory conjures up an old case. A husband who’d forced his wife to ingest a cyanide pill under threat of her children’s deaths. She’d never had a chance of survival. There’s no turning back from a substantial intake of cyanide, no chance of being saved. You’re dead in two to five brutal minutes. That mother was dead in two to five brutal minutes, never to see her children again.
That woman, that mother protecting her children, hadn’t been tied to a chair like this man, but her monster of a husband later confessed to having given her a choice. He’d told her to take a cyanide pill he’d snapped up from the dark web or he’d kill the kids. He’d wanted her life insurance. She’d taken the pill to save her kids, but he’d given the kids pills as well and then tried to make it look like a murder-suicide that left him alone and devastated.
I shove aside that morbid memory to focus on this new case, already forming a hypothesis. Perhaps something similar to what happened to that mother happened to this man. That’s why his hands are free. He was given a choice—freely submit to a poison-flavored death or an alternative that one can assume to have been worse.
For a moment, I believe that old case, and my history with a poison murder weapon, is why I’m looking at this file, but then I remember the captain’s reference to my knowledge of poetry. I flip the page and find a photo of a typed poem, much like an oversized fortune in a fortune cookie. There’s a note that indicates the poem had been shoved inside the victim’s mouth, and yet it’s free of the victim’s vomit. That’s interesting.
I set that thought aside for now and read the poem:
Who laugh in the teeth of disaster,
Yet hope through the darkness to find
A road past the stars to a Master
“We googled the poem,” the captain says, obviously following my review of the file. “It’s by—”
“Arthur Guiterman,” I supply.
His brows furrow. “The poem’s eight paragraphs. You have three lines. How did you know that?”
“Isn’t that why you called me in here? Because I have a knowledge of poetry?”
“Indeed,” he agrees. “I just didn’t expect—”
“That I really did? Well, I do.”
His eyes narrow. “What does the poem mean?”
“You could ask a handful of scholars that question and get a handful of disagreements.”
His lips press together. He doesn’t like my honesty, which is relevant to how impossible the question is to answer. “What does it mean to you?”
“My interpretation: it’s about destiny.”
Apparently, I passed the knowledge test, because he moves on. “The detective on this case made an abrupt decision to transfer to Houston, which leaves me reassigning the case.”
My brows dip in confusion, my mind focused on the detective departing, not the case that’s obviously going to land with me. We’re a small department of twelve detectives who know one another at least reasonably well. No one has said a peep about transferring. “Who’s leaving?”
“Roberts.”
Now I’m really confused. I mean, Roberts and I aren’t close, but I’ve known the man for years and he has roots here—a house, friends, an ex-wife he lives to fight with, a weekend football league. I shake my head with that confusion. “Why would he do that, Captain?”
“Personal decision.” He offers no further explanation. “I’ll let him know that he’ll be briefing you on this case. You’re taking it over. It’s your decision to either pull in Detective Langford or fly solo. This case, as far as I’m concerned, is your destiny, Detective Jazz.”
Chapter 3
I exit the captain’s office with the file in my hand, and Roberts’s rapid departure bugging the heck out of me for no real reason. Actually, that’s not true. There’s a reason. Roberts was close to my father, and knowing what I now know about my father, that’s not a positive connection. Still, the man has a right to live his life and not tell a bunch of homicide detectives he works with in advance. I know this, of course, and yet when I arrive at my desk, with Lang waiting for me, I find myself ignoring him. Which isn’t unusual. I’m as good at ignoring Lang as Lang is at ignoring me. Uneasy energy keeps me on my feet, leaning over my desk to my keyboard to look up Roberts’s number before punching it into my cell phone.
Lang snaps his fingers in front of me. “What the hell is going on?”
Roberts’s number plays a disconnected message in my ear that is both unexpected and downright odd. The captain said Roberts would be briefing me. Right now, it appears Roberts is already gone.
“Jazzy,” Lang snaps. “Earth to—”
“You know Roberts pretty well, right?”
“Yeah. I worked a case with him last year. Good guy. Why?”
“I’m taking over one of his cases. He’s making an abrupt move to Houston but was supposed to brief me on a case before he left. Apparently, that’s no longer the plan. His phone’s disconnected.”
“Get the hell out of here. Roberts?” He scowls in my direction. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. I just tried to call him.”
“This makes no sense. I had drinks with him last week and he said nothing about a damn move to Houston. You must have dialed wrong.” He reaches for his phone to dial Roberts, but I know I didn’t dial wrong. I cross the office again and poke my head into the captain’s office.
He arches a brow. “Already solve the case, Detective Jazz?”
“Trying to,” I say. “Anxious to talk to Roberts. Do you have a number for him?”
Irritation flicks across his face. “He’s in the system.”
“That number’s disconnected.”
His brows sink. “That’s odd. He isn’t leaving town until Friday. Did you dial wrong?”
I’d like to introduce him to Lang right now, the other guy wasting his time with that conclusion, but I refrain from that offer. Instead, I watch him punch a number into his phone, only to end the call almost immediately. “You’re right. It’s disconnected. Huh. Let me call Captain Newton down in his Houston precinct, or soon-to-be precinct. He should be able to reach him. I’ll let you know when I talk to him.”
In other words, get lost, but I don’t follow that direction. Not yet. “Captain—”