Page 131 - Labelle Gramercy, Detective

Airtight

Blanche shook her head. “She was the hardest worker in there. A
perfectionist, really. Even beyond her own area of research: she
would check up on everything going on in there, to make sure we
hadn’t been careless with some little detail. I would have thought
measuring those plants’ growth every day would become a drag, but
she maintained a good attitude. She cheered me up more than once
when I got homesick. As for her future, I don’t think she had any
concerns. In fact, the longer we were in there, the better her
disposition became. You talked to her every day on the phone, Kelly:
don’t you think I’m right?”
I nodded, as much to keep her talking as to agree. But her
usefulness as a diversion from Ray’s paranoia came to an abrupt end.
The door opened and Larry Kapil re-entered the fold. All eyes
swiveled in his direction. He, at least, had a well-developed
professional demeanor to carry him through crises; his face showed
not a thing.
“Your turn on the hot seat, Blanche.”
She sighed and got up from the table, a mousy blond woman in a
Cyborganics jumpsuit. Nobody looked good in those things, except
Toro. He was broad enough in the shoulders to make the baggy
things fit. I snuck a glimpse at him as Blanche made her way out of
the room. As usual, Toro was a man of few words. Somewhere along
the way, life had taught him the best way to stay out of trouble.
Larry got a cup of coffee from the pot on the credenza and sat
down. “I had hoped the police would excuse me after our interview,
but here I am again; don’t ask me why. Maybe that detective will need
more medical advice after the final autopsy report is filed. Maybe she
thinks I poisoned Laurel myself.”
“You?” It was Waldo, mock-disbelief pulling his face back toward
his ears. Larry Kapil was the very model of a mild-mannered
physician, inoffensiveness oozing from every pore. If Labelle
Gramercy suspected him of anything more felonious than creeping
through a stop sign in his BMW, she was fishing in very shallow
waters, indeed.
Larry laughed, in his self-deprecating way. “Well, a doctor does
know about poisons, after all. I told her I had no idea that a bottle of
BugOff was on the premises. Then she asked me about Laurel’s
health.”

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