“How?” Olivia asked. “How was she murdered? When I saw her in the lobby, she seemed to be unwell but not anywhere close to death.”

“It’s likely that someone crushed several of her blood pressure pills and put them in her water bottle. I guess there’s a remote possibility she did that herself, but she was really sane, and she did not have a suicidal thought in her head.”

“Someone who had access to the pills and the bottle,” Magdalena said. “That limits the field considerably.” She smiled. “In fact, that means it has to have been the maid or the son, right?”

“No, not exactly. I wish it were that clear-cut. When she dropped her purse in the lobby,” Manfred said, “everything fell out of it, including the water bottle. So it’s just possible that the bottle was switched there. It was pretty distinctive: a black refillable bottle with butterflies on it. I say it must have been a switch—I can’t see how anyone could drop the medicine into the bottle she already had, not out there in public with so many eyes watching. To say nothing of the security cameras. To say nothing of having to ensure Rachel dropped her purse in the first place. To say nothing of the timing of the pill ingestion being wrong, according to the postmortem.”

“I helped her pick her things up,” Olivia said immediately. “She was really flustered and embarrassed. And I handed her everything I found. But I don’t remember a water bottle. Either I simply didn’t register it, or someone else must have picked it up.” She looked momentarily abstracted, as if she were re-creating the scene in her head. “There were lots of people helping her, including a police officer. It took more time than you’d think. Stuff had rolled under the furniture.”

Manfred gave himself permission to believe Olivia was innocent. What he said out loud was, “Since Lewis is going to be a hot suspect in his mother’s murder, do we still need to worry about the jewel theft?”

“Yes, of course,” Magdalena said, as if he were an idiot. “He hasn’t been arrested yet. Even if he is, he’s got a good lawyer, as I think you know, Mr. Bernardo.”

Manfred winced. “Yeah, he sneaked my last lawyer out from under me, but I’m pleased with my representation now.” He managed a weak smile, which Magdalena didn’t bother to return.