“Thank you, but no,” Jack said. “But I appreciate the offer.”

It didn’t take Vinnie long to get the material, and by the time he reappeared Jack had gotten a small satchel he used to carry an extra set of underclothes back and forth between work and his apartment. Especially during the summer, he sweated profusely on his morning bicycle commute and had to shower and change.

Jack threw all the supplies into the satchel, thanked Vinnie, and headed back to the loading dock. He found Warren and Flash on the sidewalk. They were again arguing about whether Flash should go out to confront his brother-in-law.

As they piled into the car the two lifelong friends behaved as if they were angry with each other. Jack got into the spacious back seat, while Warren and Flash climbed into the front. The car was a five-year-old Cadillac.

“Can’t we make this a pleasant trip?” Jack asked, hoping to ease the tense atmosphere.

“He’s crazy!” Warren complained throwing his hands in the air. “He’s going to get himself in big trouble or killed, you know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, but it was my sister who was murdered,” Flash shot back. “If it were yours, you’d feel the same way I do.”

“But you don’t know she was murdered,” Warren said. “That’s the whole point. That’s why we’re here talking to the doc.”

“Listen, Flash,” Jack said. “I’m reasonably confident I’ll be able to tell if there was foul play, but you might have to be patient. I might not be able to say definitively for a couple of days.”

“How come a couple of days?” Flash asked. He swung around in his seat to glare at Jack. “I thought you could tell if you just looked at her.”

“That might be,” Jack said. “But I kinda doubt it, since Randolph didn’t see anything. He’s not that bad an ME. What I’m concerned about is some kind of poison.”

“Like what?” Warren asked. He looked at Jack in his rear-view mirror.

“Cyanide, for instance,” Jack said. “Of course that doesn’t fit, since the oxygen level in her blood was low. Still, it’s something to think about.”

“What else?” Warren asked.

“Carbon monoxide has to be considered,” Jack said. “But the trouble with that is that she was described as being cy-anotic, or blue, by the EMTs.”

“Is that all?” Warren asked. “No other poisons?”

“What is this, a test?” Jack asked.

“No, I’m just interested,” Warren said.

“Well, now you’re pushing me,” Jack said. “But I suppose I’ll be thinking about barbiturates, benzodiazepines, like Val-ium, ethylene glycol, and stuff like that. What all these agents have in common is they cause respiratory depression, which apparently Connie had.”

“How could her husband have killed her with carbon monoxide?” Flash asked.

“Did they have a car?”

“Yeah,” Flash said. “They even had a garage.”