Not So Model Home - By David James Page 0,40

the . . . er, kitchen, wherever that is?”

“Sure.”

As Drake got up to lead the way, Gilles piped up. “Oh, oh. Zee trouble begins.”

Drake, as usual, didn’t respond to the daily comments and quips that sailed around Ian’s home like an erratic parrot.

We entered the kitchen and I offered a seat to Drake. Drake declined, preferring to stand. I was curious. What was Jerry looking for? I tried to figure out where his path of logic was taking him, but I couldn’t yet discern anything.

“Drake, are there pocket gophers on the estate?”

Jerry’s question caught me totally off guard. Either he was very good or just crazy.

“They’re all over the place,” Drake admitted. “They’re driving Ian crazy since his cha-cha heels sink into their holes when he’s walking on the grounds.”

“Okay . . .” Jerry replied, discerning a bit of scorn in Drake’s voice. “Drake, do you keep gopher poison here on the estate?”

“In the potting shed. I’ll show you.”

Drake led the way to a building on the back of the garage. He opened the door to the shed and led us inside.

“There’s no lock on the shed door?” Ken asked.

“No,” Drake replied. “Why lock it? It’s full of pots and garden tools. Nothing worth stealing. Besides, no one ever goes in here but me. No one that I know of. Can you imagine Ian or any of his playthings getting their hands dirty?”

“I see your point,” Ken replied.

The shed was neat beyond belief. The shelves were orderly to a compulsiveness, with labeled bottles and labeled drawers. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Jerry slowly took in the room, then pointed toward a large white, plastic, spike-shaped container lying on a high shelf, neatly on its side.

“Drake, is that the container where the gopher poison is stored?”

“You mean this?” Drake responded, reaching for the container, only to have his hands stopped in mid-flight by Jerry’s hand.

“You don’t need to touch it, Drake.”

Drake, having been to Yale, was no dummy. “You suspect that Keith was poisoned? Shit! Well . . . you insert the spike into the ground until you feel it hit a gopher tunnel; then you pull it out, drop some pellets into the hole, and cover it up.”

“Drake, now it looks like you run a very tight ship here. Can you tell me if anything is missing . . . or out of place?”

Drake looked around a few seconds, but it seemed more to placate the detective’s questioning. “Nope, everything is where it’s supposed to be.”

“You seem awfully sure of that.”

Drake smiled. “I can tell. Believe me. I’m orderly to the point of being insane.”

“Okay, Drake. Thank you for your time. You can return to the house. Oh, and even after the crime lab people have gone through the shed, could you not touch anything for a few weeks? Thanks.”

“Sure. You’re welcome. Anything I can do to help.”

After Drake had gone, I started with my questions.

“So gopher poison is made of strychnine, huh?”

“Yes, blended with barley grain or anything enticing to gophers.”

“So does strychnine have a taste?”

“It’s incredibly bitter.”

I inched a bit further. “So it wouldn’t be tasted if it were in something strong like cranberry juice?”

Jerry, still looking around the shed, put his finger on his nose and pointed the other free index finger at me. “You might make a good detective one day. Keep it up. If it does turn out to be strychnine—which I would bet that it was—the killer knew enough that he had to hide the taste.”

“And even more telling, the killer had to know that Keith regularly drank cranberry juice because of his kidneys.”

“And . . . ?” Jerry prompted me, seeing if I could make the leap to the next clue.

“Uh . . . Uh . . . you went to the well too many times, Jerry.”

“Someone would have to grind up the gopher powder somewhere to make the poison. So somewhere on the estate, maybe, there’s a container that was used in the commission of the crime. If the killer is smart, that container is probably in someone else’s trashcan miles from here by now, but you never know. So we need to stop all garbage going out immediately.”

I looked around the room, wondering if any of the containers here were used to prepare Keith’s lethal beverage. There was an old-fashioned watering can, a small, dented metal paint bucket, a few old plastic food containers that Drake had washed out and reused—it was hard to tell. I guess that only