When they were in Arthur’s very modest office with the door shut, Arthur said, “What was that about? Has she behaved this way before?”

“Short answer is yes. She’s not a fan of Midnight. She answered a call out there when we were worried about motorcycles buzzing the streets, basically told us to go to hell.”

“You didn’t tell me about this.”

“The motorcycles left when they saw the patrol car, so just the fact that she showed up worked. Telling you about her attitude seemed a little like tattling to Daddy, I guess. Besides, Fiji threatened Gomez with her cat.”

Arthur smiled. “I would have liked to see that.”

“We also figured, maybe the next time we called it might be Gomez who responded again. We wanted to stay on her good side, just in case.”

“I apologize. I try to run a good department.”

“I’m sure you do.” Manfred shrugged. “Cops are just people. They have their likes and dislikes. It would be nice if she could be pleasant and respectful. But as long as she does her job, that’s what we need.” Manfred felt noble and surprisingly adult after his little speech.

“It doesn’t sound like she did her job that day.”

“You’ll have to ask her about that.”

“I intend to.” Arthur nodded sharply, as though that topic was closed and they should move on to other things.

“Putting that aside,” Manfred said agreeably, “you were telling me about what killed Rachel. And I have a question.”

“What’s that? I may or may not know the answer.”

“Would it have been fatal even if she hadn’t been sick?”

“Yes, probably. Of course, I haven’t read the autopsy report or talked to the medical examiner. Not my place, not my case. But that’s what the Bonnet Park cops say.”

“So her blood pressure just dropped? Until she couldn’t live anymore?”

“Essentially, yes.” Arthur lifted some papers on the desk in front of him, then dropped them. “The important point as far as you’re concerned is that unless something was radically different about Rachel Goldthorpe’s metabolism, she ingested that medicine before she got to your room. Probably forty-five minutes to an hour before, but it could have been a little later.”

Manfred felt overwhelmingly relieved. “How do you know?” he said.

“She died less than fifteen minutes after she’d entered your room. The toxicologist says that makes it almost a hundred percent certain that she ingested it earlier than that.”

“So I’m off the hook for putting pills in her water bottle and causing her death. But I’m still on the hook for the theft of her jewelry.”

“Based solely on Lewis’s words.” Arthur leaned back in his chair, which creaked alarmingly. They devoted a minute to thinking about that.