Savich walked out of the hospital lobby to the crowded parking lot.
Savich leaned down, gave her a quick kiss. “I wonder if Ben scrubs her scalp. You really like that.”
“Oh my, yes.”
“Actually, I’ll bet Ben throws in a lot of things.” He cupped her face in his palms, arched a dark eyebrow. “Speaking of showers, you threatened Willig with a bar of soap?”
She gave him a big grin. “Pretty cool visual, don’t you think? A pity it didn’t shake him loose.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Willig himself executed another inmate in that manner.” They were getting into the Porsche when Savich’s cell blasted out Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird. It was Dr. Amick at the forensics lab. Savich listened, thanked him and punched off. “There was arsenic in her blood. They’re still running the tests on her hair to see how long it’s been building up in her system, but I won’t be surprised if the poisoning started three weeks ago, that first time she was ill. So Venus was right.”
Sherlock blew out a breath. “You never doubted her, and neither did I.”
Savich said, “Some of his forensics team is still at the house. He wanted to examine Venus himself, but she insisted on her own doctor, Dr. Filbert, who cleared her after the medics left. She’s still at home.”
“I don’t understand, Dillon,” Sherlock said as the Porsche sped up through a yellow light. “A hit man—no other way to describe Willig—comes right to Venus’s house—in broad daylight—to kill her? It doesn’t make sense to me. How do you go from administering small doses of arsenic, enough to maybe still get away with killing an old lady without drawing attention, to an open assassination attempt? At her home, putting it all over the news? Alerting the cops? Is someone getting desperate?”
Savich nodded. “I’m thinking maybe Willig was only there to case out the place, and saw a prime chance to get it done.”
“And he failed big-time,” Sherlock said. “Or maybe,” she continued, “someone is afraid that something that’s now covered up will come uncovered if Venus isn’t dead. And another thing. Let’s say it was Alexander, or maybe even Guthrie, since they ate with her on all three occasions. How could they, or any other Rasmussen for that matter, find someone like Willig?”
“I don’t doubt Alexander could find a hit man hiding in a monastery.”
“Okay, having known Alexander over the years, I’ll agree with that. Don’t forget he’s sly, manipulative, insulting—”
“All true, plus I imagine he’s got a lot of contacts, not only in Washington, but in New York. As for the rest of the Rasmussens finding someone like Willig, you know as well as I do that the Rasmussen money could buy almost anything.”
Sherlock said, “Also, one of Venus’s staff could have managed it. And there’s Veronica. Understandable that Venus didn’t want her around today when she met with us, but she and Veronica are close; she spends most of her time with Venus, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, for fifteen years now. They’re so close Venus might even forget to mention her as a person of interest here. We need to check Venus’s will and trusts she’s made to her staff as well as to the family, look into each of their finances. We need to see who desperately needs money—not in five years, but immediately, right this minute.
“And there’s Rob, of course, the long-lost grandson. I don’t believe she suspects him, but every other Rasmussen finger will be pointing at him. No wonder Venus wants to protect him.”
“What about that accountant, Zapp, who was with her that first time at the Ambassador Club?”
“Ruth ran a check on him, couldn’t find anything. She told me he had a solid alibi for the second and third times Venus was poisoned.”
“You know what I think? It’s all too neat, too tidy. Everything points to either Guthrie or Alexander.” Sherlock sighed. “It’s like someone is handing us the answer on a silver platter.
“Dillon, whoever is behind this had to know Venus would figure it out and call the cops, or us, so he was ready with Willig. Immediately.”
Savich’s phone sang out Free Bird again. It was Alexander Rasmussen—speak of the devil—at the mansion with Venus, playing the man in charge, demanding to know what the FBI was doing to protect his grandmother, wanting to know how a shooting like that could have happened and in the middle of the day. Savich held his temper, there was no use goading Alexander, not yet. He, his father,