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Although I trusted Calvin implicitly, I still didn’t know whether that was the actual truth or a polite little lie he had told me to make me feel a bit better about the situation. However, since I definitely didn’t want to start a quarrel while we were on the way to his parents’ house, I just nodded and said, “I’m really looking forward to meeting them, too.”
We drove in silence for a moment. I wondered if I should bring up what Joyce had told me the afternoon before, or whether I should leave aside the subject of Danny Ortega’s murder for now and focus on the dinner that lay ahead of me.
But I really needed to talk to Calvin about it. I hadn’t wanted to discuss the topic over the phone, and so this was the first chance I’d gotten since Joyce’s visit to the store.
“Joyce Lewis came by yesterday afternoon,” I said, figuring I’d start with the innocuous stuff first. “I’m going to sell some of her candles in my store.”
“That’s nice of you,” Calvin replied, although I noticed he kept his gaze fixed on the road ahead. He definitely was not the sort of person to allow himself to get distracted while driving.
“Oh, it’s not ‘nice,’’’ I told him. “It’s just good business. She makes beautiful candles, and I’m sure they’ll sell like hotcakes. Anyway, she told me that the lab analysis of the spilled wine from Henry’s glass showed it was spiked with digitalis.”
Calvin’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, and he even risked a quick glance in my direction before he returned his attention to the dark highway ahead of us. “Why in the world would she tell you that?”
“She was trying to help,” I said, doing my best to make my tone all innocence. “She’s much nicer than her husband.”
“Who’s probably going to blow a gasket if he finds out his wife has been spreading secrets about the investigation all over town,” Calvin replied.
“She’s not spreading it all over town,” I replied indignantly, offended on Joyce’s behalf. “In fact, she made me swear not to tell anyone else.”
Even in the dimly lit cab of the Durango, I could see the way Calvin’s dark brows lifted. “And yet you’re telling me.”
“I asked her if I could,” I said. “Just you and no one else. And she said that would be all right.”
He released a breath and was silent for a moment. “Digitalis is pretty potent stuff, but there must have been a lot in that drink to lay him flat so quickly. Usually, you get vomiting and disorientation first before there’s any interference with the heart.”
I stared at him, impressed. “I didn’t know you knew about poisons.”
One side of his mouth lifted slightly. “You never asked. Anyway,” he went on, “we covered stuff like that when I was getting my degree. Foxglove poisoning is more common than you might think, because it’s a pretty flower that a lot of people like to grow in their gardens. You mostly see that kind of poisoning in small children and animals, though, since adults learn to steer clear of it.”
“You are a wealth of information,” I said, utterly without irony.
He grinned. “I do my best. Anyway, it’s not as though whoever the poisoner is would have to look too far for their raw materials — lots of people grow it here. The real trick is going to be figuring out where it came from, since it’s so common.”
That was a conundrum I hadn’t considered. If foxglove really was that common in the yards around Globe, then narrowing down where the poison had come from could be a difficult task.
Unless, of course, I had a flash of inspiration as to who would’ve wanted to put such a thing in Danny’s drink in the first place, and was able to head straight for the suspect instead of having to investigate every single foxglove plant in Globe.
Which I wouldn’t actually do, of course. I knew I was already pushing things when it came to this investigation, and I could only imagine Henry Lewis’s reaction if he found me poking around people’s yards, looking for foxglove plants that were missing some blooms.
If that was even where you got digitalis. I had to admit I was a little hazy on how exactly you extracted the toxin.
“I’m sure Henry is on it,” I said, and Calvin nodded with another of those wry twists of his mouth.
“No doubt. And you should probably sit back and let him do his work.”
“That’s the current plan,” I replied, which was more or less the truth. It didn’t mean I wasn’t going to continue with my own investigation, only that I didn’t intend to step on too many toes in the process.
“Good idea.”
We pulled off the highway then and headed into San Ramon, the small settlement where the members of Calvin’s tribe lived. Or rather, a lot of them had houses there, but they were also scattered all over the reservation, which followed the path of the San Ramon River and also spread out a good deal on either side. Calvin’s own home was still within the bounds of the reservation and yet had been built a good ways from the little town itself.
It looked to me as though his parents’ house must be similarly situated, because we passed right through San Ramon itself — and the tribal police station where Calvin worked — and kept going. Out here, it seemed very dark, since the road turned to dirt soon enough and I couldn’t tell if there were even any other houses around. If there were, they must have been located down long private lanes, the lights from any buildings hidden by the trees that clustered on either side.
Eventually, he swung off onto one of those private roads, one that was so narrow, two vehicles could never pass on it. I hoped no one else was heading out at the same time we were coming in.
“Your parents must like their privacy,” I said, and he grinned, teeth flashing in the reflected light from the dashboard instruments.
“More like my grandparents did,” he replied. “Although I think it was more that they wanted a place for all their kids to spread out. My father’s one of eight.”
