“I don’t know. I think … I assume he brought it with him.” Karen looked at her staff. They milled about the half-lit common area, kicking at towels, staring at hastily rearranged furniture. Several were rubbing their arms, as if fighting a chill.

“Sure there’s no iced tea in the kitchenette?”

“No. We don’t stock it here.”

“Downstairs cafeteria?”

Karen shook her head uncertainly. Danielle piped up, “Andrew’s tea, the Koala brand, is one of those all-natural, all-organic, keep-the-planet-green products. I don’t think you can buy it around here.”

“Thank heavens for small favors,” D.D. muttered, as shutting down a hospital cafeteria and calling poison control was not high on her list of things she wanted to do right now. “Lightfoot arrive with any stuff, maybe a lunchbox, briefcase?” D.D. had a fleeting image of a brown leather strap over Lightfoot’s shoulder when she and Alex had first spotted him by the elevators. “Maybe a manbag,” she mused. “I want it.”

Karen dutifully led D.D. into the Admin area, where Lightfoot had stowed a brown leather satchel. D.D. flipped it open to find a container of Greek yogurt and a bag of sunflower seeds. She took the food for testing, then returned to the common area, where she could see the staff eyeing one another nervously for imminent medical collapse.

“Anyone else have iced tea?” D.D. asked.

One by one, they shook their heads.

“Who’s eaten here tonight?”

Four staff members slowly raised their arms. D.D. noted that Greg and Danielle were not among them.

“What time?”

The MCs had started at seven p.m., taking a snack break between nine and nine-thirty.

“Good news,” D.D. informed them. “Strychnine is one of the fastest-acting poisons, with symptoms emerging within five minutes of ingestion, so if you’re vertical now, you’re probably going to be vertical later. Timeline fits what we saw tonight: Lightfoot opened his drink, took a few sips, started the meditation, drank a bit more, and I’d say about eight minutes into it …”

“Collapsed in full convulsion,” Karen filled in, her voice subdued. Everyone stared at the table that Lightfoot had been sitting on.

“Strychnine is odorless,” D.D. informed the anxious staff members, “but has a bitter taste. So if you run across anything that tastes funky, set it aside immediately. I’ll phone the lab, have them send someone over to test the water, as well as everything in the kitchen, but that’ll take some time. When are the kids due to eat again?”

“Not until breakfast,” Karen supplied, “though some of the kids need a middle-of-the-night snack.”

D.D. thought about it. “Stick to food or drink items that come from sealed packages. Snack-sized cereals, that sort of thing. As long as the seal hasn’t been broken, they should be okay. Make sense?”

Everyone nodded mutely.

“All right. Who saw Lightfoot with the iced tea?”